A meeting was held at St. James's Hall on Wednesday,
to protest against the sentences passed on Messrs. Foote and Ramsey for blasphemy, and, indeed, altogether against the blas- phemy laws as they now stand. We greatly regret that Sir William Harcourt has not advised the Crown to remit a large portion of the very heavy sentences passed upon these offenders. That they deserved some punishment for the scurrilous nature of their attack on Christianity may be admitted, but the sentences actually passed were of a kind to gain them, with the mob, the reputation of martyrs. No more foolish course could have been taken, and we believe that, looking to the kind of persons punished, the sentence was unjust also. Mr. Bradlaugh, who addressed the meeting at St. James's Hall, is understood to have boasted that those who punished Mr. Foote and Mr. Ramsey did not dare touch him. That probably means only that Mr. Bradlaugh's notoriety is turning his head. But what greater folly can be committed, than that of making for such a man so factitious a fame ?
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