me out!” shouted Mr. Burbery, striking an attitude.  Mr. Bradlaugh left the platform and walked up to the noisy swashbuckler, who at once grappled with him and tried to throw him.  But Mr. Burbery had not reckoned on the massive strength of his opponent, and when the “throw” was complete Mr. Burbery was underneath.  Amid much excitement Mr. Burbery was propelled towards the door, being gently used on the way as a battering-ram against his friends who rushed to the rescue, and at the door was handed over to the police.  The chairman then resumed his normal duties, with a brief “Go on” to me, and I promptly went on, finishing the lecture in peace.  But outside the hall there was plenty of stone-throwing, and Mrs. Elmy received a cut on the temple from a flint.  This stormy work gradually lessened, and my experience of it was a mere trifle compared to that which my predecessors had faced.  Mr. Bradlaugh’s early experiences involved much serious rioting, and Mrs. Harriet Law, a woman of much courage and of strong natural ability, had many a rough meeting in her lecturing days.

In September, 1875, Mr. Bradlaugh again sailed for America, still to earn money there to pay his debts.  Unhappily he was struck down by typhoid fever, and all his hopes of freeing himself thus were destroyed.  His life was well-nigh despaired of, but the admirable skill of physician and nurse pulled him through.  Said the Baltimore Advertiser:—­

“This long and severe illness has disappointed the hopes and retarded the object for which he came to this country; but he is gentleness and patience itself in his sickness in this strange land, and has endeared himself greatly to his physicians and attendants by his gratitude and appreciation of the slightest attention.”

His fortitude in face of death was also much commented on, lying there as he did far from home and from all he loved best.  Never a quiver of fear touched him as he walked down into the valley of the shadow of death; the Rev. Mr. Frothingham bore public and admiring testimony in his own church to Mr. Bradlaugh’s noble serenity, at once fearless and unpretending, and, himself a Theist, gave willing witness to the Atheist’s calm strength.  He came back to us at the end of September, worn to a shadow, weak as a child, and for many a long month he bore the traces of his wrestle with death.

One part of my autumn’s work during his absence was the delivery and subsequent publication of six lectures on the French Revolution.  That stormy time had for me an intense fascination.  I brooded over it, dreamed over it, and longed to tell the story from the people’s point of view.  I consequently read a large amount of the current literature of the time, as well as Louis Blanc’s monumental work and the histories of Michelet, Lamartine, and others.  Fortunately for me, Mr. Bradlaugh had a splendid collection of books on the subject, and ere we left England he brought me two cabs-full of volumes, aristocratic,