and I found that it had been written by a Doctor of Medicine some years before, and sent to the National Reformer for review, as to other journals, in ordinary course of business.  It consisted of three parts—­the first advocated, from the standpoint of medical science, what is roughly known as “Free Love”; the second was entirely medical; the third consisted of a clear and able exposition of the law of population as laid down by the Rev. Mr. Malthus, and—­following the lines of John Stuart Mill—­insisted that it was the duty of married persons to voluntarily limit their families within their means of subsistence.  Mr. Bradlaugh, in reviewing the book, said that it was written “with honest and pure intent and purpose,” and recommended to working men the exposition of the law of population.  His enemies took hold of this recommendation, declared that he shared the author’s views on the impermanence of the marriage tie, and, despite his reiterated contradictions, they used extracts against marriage from the book as containing his views.  Anything more meanly vile it would be difficult to conceive, but such were the weapons used against him all his life, and used often by men whose own lives contrasted most unfavourably with his own.  Unable to find anything in his own writings to serve their purpose, they used this book to damage him with those who knew nothing at first-hand of his views.  What his enemies feared were not his views on marriage—­which, as I have said, was conservative—­but his Radicalism and his Atheism.  To discredit him as politician they maligned him socially, and the idea that a man desires “to abolish marriage and the home,” is a most convenient poniard, and the one most certain to wound.  This was the origin of his worst difficulties, to be intensified, ere long, by his defence of Malthusianism.  On me also fell the same lash, and I found myself held up to hatred as upholder of views that I abhorred.

I may add that far warmer praise than that bestowed on this book by Mr. Bradlaugh was given by other writers, who were never attacked in the same way.

In the Reasoner, edited by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, I find warmer praise of it than in the National Reformer; in the review the following passage appears:—­

“In some respects all books of this class are evils:  but it would be weakness and criminal prudery—­a prudery as criminal as vice itself—­not to say that such a book as the one in question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that it combats, but in one sense a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage to publish.”

The Examiner, reviewing the same book, declared it to be—­

“A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous book....  This is, we believe, the only book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the elements in the problem—­How are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils?—­and fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution.”