MR BRADLAUGH’S EXCLUSION FROM PARLIAMENT.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3133, 18 April 1883, Page 2

MR BRADLAUGH’S EXCLUSION FROM PARLIAMENT.

A recent Home paper, treating of Mr Bradlangh’s exclusion from the House of Commons, remarks “On Thursday nest Mr Bradlaugh will present himself . at the House of Commons and claim to take his seat as the duly elected and , properly qualified member for Northampton. In all liklihood his claims will again be rejected, and that on the ground of his being a disbeliever. There is no imputation whatever on Mr Bradlaugh’s moral character. He has never figured in the divorce Court. He has not run away, with his friend’s wife. He did not abandon his own, and commit an adultery with the first woman be picked up in the streets. Had he been guilty of all these offences it would not have constituted a barrier to his sitting in the House of Commons. The cause of his rejection is the fact of having avowedly declared his disbelief in religious dogmas, to; which probably, nine-tenths of the members in. that assembly dissent. Nor does Mr Bradlaugh refuse to comply with the rules ~v and forms ancient and modern, however ‘ stupid and meaningless they may be, that are preliminary to becoming a member of parliament. But may be at the very moment Mr Bradlaugh is . denied admission to the House of Commons on the score of disbelief, men of evil repute, to whoso names unenvi- : able notoriety is, attached—those who have openly outraged the law and ordinances of that religion, they. profess to . believe in, of God they profess to worship—are admitted without one word of objection to the House of Peers 1” ...