"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: Then you can be discharged on your own recognizances for £100, 'to be of good behavior,' which you will understand to mean, that you will desist from the publication of this work until your appeal shall have been heard, and will engage to prosecute the appeal without delay.
"Mr. BRADLAUGH: Certainly; until the present, I have undoubtedly circulated the book. Although there is a blunder in the affidavits I do not disguise the matter of fact. I shall immediately put the thing under my own control, and I will at once lock up every copy in existence, and will not circulate another copy until the appeal is decided.
"Mr. JUSTICE MELLOR: It must be that you will really, to the best of your ability, prevent the circulation of this book until this matter has been determined.
"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: And what Mr. Bradlaugh says, I understand that you, Mrs. Besant, also assent to?
"Mrs. BESANT: Yes: that is my pledge until the writ of error has been decided. I do not want to give a pledge which you may think was not given honestly. I will give my pledge, but it must be understood that the promise goes no further than that decision.
"Mr. JUSTICE MELLOR: You will abstain yourself from circulating the book, and, so far as you can, suppress its circulation?
"Mr. BRADLAUGH: Every copy that is unsold shall be at once put under lock and key until the decision of the case.
"The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: My lord, I think there should be no misunderstanding upon this; I understand that the defendants have undertaken that during the pendency of the appeal this book shall not be circulated at all. But if the decision should be against them they are under no pledge not to publish.
"Mr. BRADLAUGH: I hope your lordship will not ask us what we shall do in future.
"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: We have meted out the amount of punishment upon the assumption--there being no assertion to the contrary, but rather an admission--that they do intend to set the law at defiance. If we had understood that they were prepared to submit themselves to the law, we should have been disposed to deal with them in the most indulgent manner; but as we understood that they did not intend this, we have meted out to them such a punishment as we hope, when undergone, will have a deterrent effect upon them, and may prevent other people offending in like manner. We have nothing to do with what may happen after the defendants obtain a judgment in their favor, if they do so, or after the sentence is carried out, if they do not. Our sentence is passed, and it will stand, subject only to this, that we stay execution until a writ of error may be disposed of, the defendants giving the most unqualified and unreserved pledge that they will not allow another copy of the book to be sold.