Why, I asked, should the high-class blasphemer be petted by society, and the low-class blasphemer be made to bear their sins, and driven forth into the wilderness of Holloway Gaol?
Lord Coleridge, in his summing up, supported my view, and his admission is so important that I venture to give it in full.
"With regard to some of the others from whom Mr.Foote quoted passages, I heard many of them for the first time.
I do not at all question that Mr.Foote read them correctly.
They are passages which, hearing them only from him for the first time, I confess I have a difficulty in distinguishing from the incriminated publication.

They do appear to me to be open to exactly the same charge and the same grounds of observation that Mr.Foote's publications are.

He says--and I don't call upon him to prove it, I am quite willing to take his word--he says many of these things are written in expensive books, published by publishers of known eminence, and that they circulate in the drawing-rooms, studies, and libraries of persons of position.

It may be so.

All I can say here is-- and so far I can answer for myself--I would make no distinction between Mr.Foote and anybody else; and if there are persons, however eminent they may be, who used language, not fairly distinguishable from that used by Mr.Foote, and if they are ever brought before me--which I hope they never may be, for a more troublesome or disagreeable business can never be inflicted upon me--if they come before me, so far as my poor powers go they shall have neither more nor less than the justice I am trying to do to Mr.Foote; and if they offend the Blasphemy Laws they shall find that so long as these laws exist--whatever I may think about their wisdom--they will have but one rule of law laid down in this court." Another point I raised, which I neglected in my previous defences, was this.