Prisoner for Blasphemy | Page 5

last relics of religious persecution. What Lord Coleridge read from
Starkie as the law of blasphemous libel, I regard with Sir James
Stephen as "flabby verbiage." Lord Coleridge is himself a master of
style, and I suppose his admiration of Starkie's personal character has
blinded his judgment. Starkie simply raises a cloud of words to hide the
real nature of the Blasphemy Laws. He shows how Freethinkers may be
punished without avowing the principle of persecution. Instead of
frankly saying that Christianity must not be attacked, he imputes to
aggressive heretics "a malicious and mischievous intention," and
"apathy and indifference to the interests of society;" and he justifies
their being punished, not for their actions, but for their motives: a
principle which, if it were introduced into our jurisprudence, would
produce a chaos.
Could there be a more ridiculous assumption than that a man who
braves obloquy, social ostracism, and imprisonment for his principles,
is indifferent to the interest of society? Let Christianity strike
Freethinkers if it will, but why add insult to injury? Why brand us as

cowards when you martyr us? Why charge us with hypocrisy when we
dare your hate?
Persecution, like superstition, dies hard, but it dies. What though I have
suffered the heaviest punishment inflicted on a Freethinker for a
hundred and twenty years? Is not the night always darkest and coldest
before the dawn? Is not the tiger's dying spring most fierce and terrible?
My sufferings, therefore, are not without the balm of consolation. I see
that the future is already brightening with a new hope. Without rising to
the supreme height of Danton, who cried "Let my name be blighted that
France be free," I feel a humbler pleasure in reflecting that I may have
been instrumental in breaking the last fetter on the freedom of the press.
G. W. FOOTE.
_February 1st_, 1886.

CHAPTER I.
THE STORM BREWING.
In the merry month of May, 1881, I started a paper called the
Freethinker, with the avowed object of waging "relentless war against
Superstition in general and the Christian Superstition in particular." I
stated in the first paragraph of the first number that this new journal
would have a new policy; that it would "do its best to employ the
resources of Science, Scholarship, Philosophy and Ethics against the
claims of the Bible as a Divine Revelation," and that it would "not
scruple to employ for the same purpose any weapons of ridicule or
sarcasm that might be borrowed from the armoury of Common Sense."
As the Freethinker was published at the people's price of a penny, and
was always edited in a lively style, with a few short articles and plenty
of racy paragraphs, it succeeded from the first; and becoming well
known, not through profuse advertisement, but through the
recommendation of its readers, its circulation increased every week.
Within a year of its birth it had outdistanced all its predecessors. No
Freethought journal ever progressed with such amazing rapidity. True,
this was largely due to the fact that the Freethought party had
immensely increased in numbers; but much of it was also due to the

policy of the paper, which supplied, as the advertising gentry say, "a
long-felt want." Although the first clause of its original programme was
never wholly forgotten, we gradually paid the greatest attention to the
second, indulging more and more in Ridicule and Sarcasm, and more
and more cultivating Common Sense. A dangerous policy, as I was
sometimes warned; but for that very reason all the more necessary. The
more Bigotry writhed and raged, the more I felt that our policy was
telling. Borrowing a metaphor from Carlyle's "Frederick," I likened
Superstition to the boa, which defies all ponderous assaults, and will
not yield to the pounding of sledge-hammers, but sinks dead when
some expert thrusts in a needle's point and punctures the spinal column.
I had a further incentive. Mr. Bradlaugh's infamous treatment by the
bigots had revolutionised my ideas of Freethought policy. Although
never timid, I was until then practically ignorant of the horrible spirit of
persecution; and with the generous enthusiasm of youth I fondly
imagined that the period of combat was ended, that the liberty of
platform and press was finally won, that Supernaturalism was
hopelessly scotched although obviously not slain, and that Freethinkers
should now devote themselves to cultivating the fields they had won
instead of raiding into the enemy's territory. Alas for the illusions of
hope! They were rudely dispelled by a few "scenes" in the House of
Commons, and barred from all chance of re-gathering by the wild
display of intolerance outside. I saw, in quite another sense than Garth
Wilkinson's, the profound truth of his saying that--
"The Duke of Wellington's advice, Do not make a little war, is
applicable to