In the dark, outside the hall, they took to kicking, but only one kick reached me, and the attempts to overturn the cab were foiled by the driver, who put his horse at a gallop.

Later in the same month Mr.Bradlaugh and I visited Congleton together, having been invited there by Mr.and Mrs.Wolstenholme Elmy.

Mr.Bradlaugh lectured on the first evening to an accompaniment of broken windows, and I, sitting with Mrs.Elmy facing the platform, received a rather heavy blow on the back of the head from a stone thrown by some one in the room.

We had a mile and a half to walk from the hall to the house, and were accompanied all the way by a stone-throwing crowd, who sang hymns at the tops of their voices, with interludes of curses and foul words.

On the following evening I lectured, and our stone-throwing admirers escorted us to the hall; in the middle of the lecture a man shouted, "Put her out!" and a well-known wrestler of the neighbourhood, named Burbery, who had come to the hall with some friends to break up the meeting, stood up as at a signal in front of the platform and loudly interrupted.