There is no better field for Freethought and Radical work than Northumberland and Durham; the miners there are as a rule shrewd and hard-headed men, and very cordial is the greeting given by them to those whom they have reason to trust.  At Seghill and at Bedlington I have slept in their cottages and have been welcomed to their tables, and I remember one evening at Seghill, after a lecture, that my host invited about a dozen miners to supper to meet me; the talk ran on politics, and I soon found that my companions knew more of English politics and had a far shrewder notion of political methods than I had found among the ordinary “diners-out” in “society”.  They were of the “uneducated” class despised by “gentlemen” and had not the vote, but politically they were far better educated than their social superiors, and were far better fitted to discharge the duties of citizenship.

On May 16th I attended, for the first time, the Annual Conference called by the National Secular Society.  It was held at Manchester, in the Society’s rooms in Grosvenor Street, and it is interesting and encouraging to note how the Society has grown and strengthened since that small meeting held nearly ten years ago.  Mr. Bradlaugh was elected President; Messrs. A. Trevelyan, T. Slater, C. Watts, C.C.  Cattell, R.A.  Cooper, P.A.V.  Le Lubez, N. Ridgway, G.W.  Foote, G.H.  Reddalls, and Mrs. Besant Vice Presidents.  Messrs. Watts and Standring were elected as Secretary and Assistant-Secretary—­both offices were then honorary, for the Society was too poor to pay the holders—­and Mr. Le Lubez Treasurer.  The result of the Conference was soon seen in the energy infused into the Freethought propaganda, and from that time to this the Society has increased in numbers and in influence, until that which was scarcely more than a skeleton has become a living power in the land on the side of all social and political reforms.  The Council for 1875 consisted of but thirty-nine members, including President, Vice-Presidents, and Secretary, and of these only nine were available as a Central Executive.  Let Freethinkers compare this meagre list with the present, and then let them “thank” man “and take courage”.

Lecturing at Leicester in June, I came for the first time across a falsehood of which I have since heard plenty.  An irate Christian declared that I was responsible for a book entitled the “Elements of Social Science”, which was, he averred, the “Bible of Secularists”.  I had never heard of the book, but as he insisted that it was in favor of the abolition of marriage, and that Mr. Bradlaugh agreed with it, I promptly contradicted him, knowing that Mr. Bradlaugh’s views on marriage were conservative rather than revolutionary.  On enquiry afterwards I found that the book in question had been written some years before by a Doctor of Medicine, and had been sent for review by its publisher to the National Reformer among other papers.  I found further that it consisted of three parts; the