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.