The speech over, a number of witnesses were called.  Sir Hardinge did not call witnesses who knew the facts, such as Mr. Norrish, the shopman, or Mr. Whittle, the printer.  These he carefully avoided, although he subpoenaed both, because he did not want the real facts to come out.  But he put in two solicitor’s clerks, who had been hanging about the premises, and buying endless National Reformers and Freethinkers, sheaves of them which were never used, but by which Sir Hardinge hoped to convey the impression of a mass of criminality.  He put in a gentleman from the British Museum, who produced two large books, presumed to be National Reformers and Freethinkers; what they were brought for nobody understood, the counsel for the Crown as little as any one, and the judge, surveying them over his spectacles, treated them with supreme contempt, as utterly irrelevant.  Then a man came to prove that Mr. Bradlaugh was rated for Stonecutter Street, a fact no one disputed.  Two policemen came to say they had seen him go in.  “You saw many people go in, I suppose?” queried the Lord Chief Justice.  On the whole the most miserably weak and obviously malicious case that could be brought into a court of law.

One witness, however, must not be forgotten—­Mr. Woodhams, bank manager.  When he stated that Mr. Maloney, the junior counsel for the Crown, had inspected Mr. Bradlaugh’s banking account, a murmur of surprise and indignation ran round the court.  “Oh!  Oh!” was heard from the crowd of barristers behind.  The judge looked down incredulously, and for a moment the examination was stopped by the general movement.  Unless Sir Hardinge Giffard is a splendid actor, he was not aware of the infamous proceeding, for he looked as startled as the rest of his legal brethren.

Another queer incident occurred, showing, perhaps more than aught else, Mr. Bradlaugh’s swift perception of the situation and adaptation to the environment.  He wanted to read the Mansion House deposition of Norrish, to show why he was not called; the judge objected, and declined to allow it to be read.  A pause while you might count five; then; “Well, I think I may say the learned counsel did not call Norrish because ...” and then the whole substance of the deposition was given in supposititious form.  The judge looked down a minute, and then went off into silent laughter impossible to control at the adroit change of means and persistent gaining of end; barristers all round broke into ripples of laughter unrestrained; a broad smile pervaded the jury box; the only unmoved person was the defendant who proceeded in his grave statement as to what Norrish “might” have been asked.  The nature of the defence was very clearly stated by Mr. Bradlaugh:  “I shall ask you to find that this prosecution is one of the steps in a vindictive attempt to oppress and to crush a political opponent—­that it was a struggle that commenced on my return to Parliament in 1880.  If the prosecutor had gone into the