Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 1 (of 2)

"Cahir Barracks, September 23rd, 1853.

"Sir, – Having been informed by Private Charles Bradlaugh of the 7th Dragoon Guards, that you require some testimonials as to character, I beg to inform you that during the time this man has been in the regiment (since December 1850) his conduct has been extremely good, and I beg also to add that he is always considered to be a clever, well-informed, and steady young man. Should you require any further information, I shall be most happy to give [all] in my power. – I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

"E. T. Dowbiggin,Lieut. and Adjutant, 7th Dragoon Guards.

"J. Lepard, Esq.

"P.S.– I may observe that during the last eighteen months this man has been occupying rather a prominent situation in the regiment, being that of orderly room clerk, and has consequently been immediately under my notice."

14

This signature is almost illegible.

15

The City of Dreadful Night, and other Poems. By James Thomson ("B. V.").

16

The following handbill, which was circulated after the second reading of the Sunday Trading Bill, and put in evidence at the Royal Commission subsequently held, will give a good idea as to the extent of the proposed measure.

"Tyrannical attack upon the Liberty of the people. Proposed prohibition of Sunday trading. The New Bill brought in by Lord Robert Grosvenor, Lord Ebrington, and Mr M. Chambers proposes to prevent trading on Sundays within the Metropolitan Police District and city of London, and the liberties thereof. It enacts 'that all persons selling, offering, or exposing for sale, or causing to be sold or exposed for sale (on Sundays) any goods, chattels, effects, or things whatsoever, shall, on summary conviction thereof, be fined 5s., and on a second conviction, this fine may be increased to 40s.; and the fines will be cumulative, and every separate act of selling will be a separate offence. The act will not apply to the sale of medicines or drugs, nor to the selling or crying of milk or cream before 9 a.m. or after 1 p.m., nor to the selling or offering of any newspaper or periodical before 10 a.m., nor to the sale of fruit, cooked victuals, or any unfermented beverage before 10 a.m. and after 1 p.m., nor to the sale of meat, poultry, fish, or game, before 9 a.m., from the 31st of May to the 1st of October in each year, nor to the exercise of the ordinary business of a licensed victualler or innkeeper. Butchers and others delivering meat, fish, or game, after 9 a.m. on Sundays, will be liable to the penalties above mentioned. Nor will that useful class of the community, the barbers and hairdressers, be exempted, if they presume to 'do business' after ten o'clock on Sunday mornings, in which case they may be fined 5s., and 20s. for a second offence. It appears, however, that the payment of one penalty will protect the offending barber from any further fine on the same day. Clause 6 saves servants from the operation of the Act, and visits their disobedience on their masters or mistresses. The police are required to enforce the provisions of the Act. Penalties and costs may be levied by distress, and imprisonment may be inflicted in default of payment for 14 days in the common gaol or house of correction. The penalties will be appropriated to the expenses of the police force. No informations are to be quashed for informality, or to be removed by certiorari into the Court of Queen's Bench. The Act (is) to commence (if passed) on the 1st day of November, or All Saints' Day, 1855. A more tyrannical measure was never attempted to be forced upon the people of this country, and if this 'Saints' Bill' is allowed to pass, a much more stringent Act will doubtless follow."

17

Probably the re-formation of the National Sunday League on its present basis in the autumn of 1855 was in great degree owing to the attempted Sunday legislation of the summer; and it will perhaps be news to most of the Sunday Leaguers of to-day that in the March of 1856 Mr Bradlaugh was actively engaged in trying to form a branch of the League in the East End, of which he was the Secretary pro. tem., and which was to hold its meetings in the Hayfield Coffee House, Mile End Road.

18

Vol. XXIII. 1856, pp. 146, 147.

19

The Autobiography of Charles Bradlaugh. A page from his life, written in 1873 for the National Reformer.

20

July 1855.

21

The Investigator. A Journal of Secularism, edited by Robert Cooper.

22

Biography of Charles Bradlaugh.

23

Mr Allsop will be known to the English public as the author of the "Recollections of Samuel Taylor Coleridge." He died a few years before my father, and he lies near his friend at Brookwood.

24

Investigator, November 1st, 1858, p. 124.

25

The letter is headed, "Yarmouth, Thursday."

26

"Eastern Counties," now "Great Eastern" Railway.

27

"Once, as a financier, he was intrusted with the negotiation of a loan for the city of Pisa, with some of whose authorities he had become acquainted in some of his various journeys to Italy. His percentage, small in name, was to be considerable in total, on a loan of £750,000. He duly arranged matters with a certain London financier, who thereupon sent off a clerk to Pisa to offer the money at a fraction less than Bradlaugh was to get, provided he got the whole commission. Bradlaugh, however, had been secured in the conduct of the transaction up to a given date. He instantly went to Rothschilds, who allowed no commission, and put the loan in their hands. The other financier thus got nothing; but so did Bradlaugh." – John M. Robertson, "Memoir," pp. xxxvi. xxxvii.