Note 165 — Chapter III · (continued 3)

If further samples are needed of the general untruthfulness, they can be given by the dozen. Even men of good standing spoke with a disregard of scruple which put them outside courteous correction. Bradlaugh was driven to characterise Sir Edward Watkin as "an exceedingly and wantonly untruthful person." In November 1882 he represented to his Folkestone constituents that he would not have stood in the way of Bradlaugh either swearing or affirming, but that he resisted when Bradlaugh "distinctly outraged all that they held sacred." This presumably referred to the self-administered oath of 1882. But Sir E. Watkin had voted against Bradlaugh being allowed to swear on 27th April 1881. The Hon. Mr Stansfeld, speaking at Halifax in October 1882, actually represented that the oath was "on the true faith of a Christian;" and repeated the untruth that Bradlaugh had "said that the oath had no binding effect on his conscience." The Rev. Canon Gascoigne Weldon, of Rothesay, asserted in writing that Bradlaugh "boasted publicly that he sought entrance into the House of Commons to insult its members and all its past glorious history, and level it, if possible, with its sister House, to the ground."