human
meetings--a statement which Bradlaugh had distinctly repudiated, and which was entirely wide of the facts and the evidence. The whole drift of Bradlaugh's charge, as he stated, was
gpt
As the summing-up went on, indeed, it became clear that Baron Huddleston felt this also, and that in his view there had been a
human
statement against Lord Salisbury, who, however, was not the suitor in the action. On the point of law he made no intelligible attempt to rebut Bradlaugh's plea that the statement sued on was in no sense a libel; but he thoughtfully suggested to the jury, with regard to the evidence of a witness called by Bradlaugh, that they could consider what value should be put on the evidence of a man who objected to take the oath. He further took much pains to impress on the jury that
gpt
On this instruction the jury found a verdict for Peters, with £300 damages. And yet in the following year (November 1889), when Mrs Besant sued the Rev. Mr Hoskyns for libelling her, during her School Board candidature, in a circular which had the statement:
human
A Freethinker thus describes the practical outcome of her teaching: 'Chastity is a crime; unbridled sensuality is a virtue,' the same judge hardily instructed the jury that
gpt
but as to
human
He himself became conscious as he went on of the iniquity of this instruction, and proceeded to cite and vilify passages from Mrs Besant's works, thus doing everything in his power to prejudice the jury on the real issue. But in the end, while professing to put to them the separate issues of publication, libel, and truth in fact, he added the issue:
gpt
If untrue, _then did the defendant when he published it honestly and reasonably believe it to be true_, and that it was his duty to publish it, and did he do so without malice? And yet again he urged that even if the libel were found untrue,
human
His own obtruded opinion was that a priest might justifiably issue such a circular to his parishioners. Thus he laid down for the trial of Mrs Besant's action against a priest the exactly opposite principle to that which he laid down in Peters' action against Bradlaugh. The priest was now adjudged free to do what the judge had said
gpt
The priest confessed in the witness-box that he had not read any of Mrs Besant's books when he issued his circular. He had availed himself of the libel of a pseudonymous scoundrel, making no attempt to ascertain its truth Bradlaugh in his statement as to the Fair Trade demonstration had spoken on the actual evidence of cheques which he saw, and on his knowledge of the habitual co-operation of Peters and Kelly. But the Conservative judge contrived to find the priest right and Bradlaugh wrong. And it is on the strength of a verdict thus procured that Bradlaugh has since been spoken of as