He had spoken for her, pleaded for her, for many a long year, through press and on platform, and his spurs as member for India were won long ere he was member of Parliament.
A place on the staff of the _National Reformer_ was offered me by Mr.
Bradlaugh a few days after our first meeting, and the small weekly salary thus earned--it was only a guinea, for national reformers are always poor--was a very welcome addition to my resources.

My first contribution appeared in the number for August 30, 1874, over the signature of "Ajax," and I wrote in it regularly until Mr.Bradlaugh died; from 1877 until his death I sub-edited it, so as to free him from all the technical trouble and the weary reading of copy, and for part of this period was also co-editor.

I wrote at first under a _nom de guerre_, because the work I was doing for Mr.Scott would have been prejudiced had my name appeared in the columns of the terrible _National Reformer_, and until this work--commenced and paid for--was concluded I did not feel at liberty to use my own name.

Afterwards, I signed my _National Reformer_ articles, and the tracts written for Mr.
Scott appeared anonymously.
The name was suggested by the famous statue of "Ajax Crying for Light," a cast of which may be seen in the centre walk by any visitor to the Crystal Palace, Sydenham.

The cry through the darkness for light, even though light should bring destruction, was one that awoke the keenest sympathy of response from my heart: "If our fate be death Give light, and let us die!" To see, to know, to understand, even though the seeing blind, though the knowledge sadden, though the understanding shatter the dearest hopes--such has ever been the craving of the upward-striving mind in man.