"The Knowlton pamphlet is now entirely out of print, and, 185,000 having been printed, the Freethought Publishing Company do not intend to continue the publication, which has never at any time been advertised by them except on the original issue to test the question. 'The Law of Population', price 6d., post free 8d., has been specially written by Mrs. Besant to supersede the Knowlton pamphlet."
Thus ended a prolonged resistance to an unfair attempt to stifle discussion, and, much as I have suffered in consequence of the part I took in that fight, I have never once regretted that battle for the saving of the poor.
In July, 1877, a side-quarrel on the pamphlet begun which lasted until December 3rd, 1878, and was fought through court after court right out to a successful issue. We had avoided a seizure warrant by removing all our stock from 28, Stonecutter Street, but 657 of the pamphlets had been seized at Mr. Truelove's, in Holborn, and that gentleman was also proceeded against for selling the work. The summons for selling was withdrawn, and Mr. Bradlaugh succeeded in having his name and mine inserted as owners of the books in the summons for their destruction. The books remained in the custody of the magistrate until after the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, and on February 12th, 1878, Mr. Bradlaugh appeared before Mr. Vaughan at Bow Street, and claimed that the books should be restored to him. Mr. Collette, of the Vice Society, argued on the other hand that the books were obscene, and ought therefore to be destroyed. Mr. Vaughan reserved his decision, and asked for the Lord Chief Justice's summing-up in the Queen _v._ Bradlaugh and Besant. On February 19th he made an order for the destruction of the pamphlets, against which Mr. Bradlaugh appealed to the General Sessions on the following grounds:
"1st. That the said book is not an obscene book within the meaning of the 20th and 21st Victoria, cap. 83. 2nd. That the said book is a scientific treatise on the law of population and its connexion with poverty, and that there is nothing in the book which is not necessary and legitimate in the description of the question. 3rd. That the advocacy of non-life-destroying checks to population is not an offence either at common law or by statute, and that the manner in which that advocacy is raised in the said book, 'The Fruits of Philosophy', is not such as makes it an indictable offence. 4th. That the discussion and recommendation of checks to over-population after marriage is perfectly lawful, and that there is in the advocacy and recommendations contained in the book 'Fruits of Philosophy' nothing that is prurient or calculated to inflame the passions. 5th. That the physiological information in the said book is such as is absolutely necessary for understanding the subjects treated, and such information is more fully given in Carpenter's treatises on Physiology, and Kirke's 'Handbook of Physiology', which later works are used for the instruction of the young under Government sanction. 6th. That the whole of the physiological information contained in the said book, 'The Fruits of Philosophy', has been published uninterruptedly for fifty years, and still is published in dear books, and that the publication of such information in a cheap form cannot constitute an offence."