Another matter, that increased as the months went on, was the attempt of the police authorities to stop Socialist speaking in the open air.  Christians, Freethinkers, Salvationists, agitators of all kinds were, for the most part, left alone, but there was a regular crusade against the Socialists.  Liberal and Tory journals alike condemned the way in which in Dod Street, in September, the Socialists’ meetings were attacked.  Quiet persistence was shown by the promoters—­members of the Social Democratic Federation—­and they were well supported by other Socialists and by the Radical clubs.  I volunteered to speak on October 4th (my first Sunday in London after the summoning and imprisoning of the speakers had commenced), but the attitude of the people was so determined on the preceding Sunday that all interference was withdrawn.

Herbert Burrows stood for the School Board for the Tower Hamlets in the November of this year, and I find a paragraph in the Reformer in which I heartily wished him success, especially as the first candidate who had put forward a demand for industrial education.  In this, as in so many practical proposals, Socialists have led the way.  He polled 4,232 votes, despite the furious opposition of the clergy to him as a Freethinker, of the publicans to him as a teetotaler, of the maintainers of the present social system to him as a Socialist.  And his fight did much to make possible my own success in 1888.

With this autumn, too, began, in connection with the struggle for the right of meeting, the helping of the workmen to fair trial by providing of bail and legal defence.  The first case that I bailed out was that of Lewis Lyons, sent to gaol for two months with hard labour by Mr. Saunders, of the Thames Police Court.  Oh, the weary, sickening waiting in the court for “my prisoner,” the sordid vice, the revolting details of human depravity to which my unwilling eyes and ears were witnesses.  I carried Lyons off in triumph, and the Middlesex magistrates quashed the conviction, the evidence being pronounced by them to be “confusing, contradictory, and worthless.”  Yet but for the chance of one of us stepping forward to offer bail and to provide the means for an appeal (I acted on Mr. Bradlaugh’s suggestion and advice, for he acted as counsellor to me all through the weary struggles that lasted till 1888, putting his great legal knowledge at my disposal, though he often disapproved my action, thinking me Quixotic)—­but for this, Lewis Lyons would have had to suffer his heavy sentence.

The general election took place this autumn, and Northampton returned Mr. Bradlaugh for the fifth time, thus putting an end to the long struggle, for he took the oath and his seat in the following January, and at once gave notice of an Oaths Bill, to give to all who claimed it, under all circumstances, the right to affirm.  He was returned with the largest vote ever polled for him—­4,315—­and he entered Parliament with all the prestige of his great struggle,