Insurance companies would not insure
my property. Schoolmasters would not admit my sons into their schools,
lest others should take their children away. Mothers would not allow
their daughters to play with my little daughter, lest she should infect
them with her father's heresies.
After the Summer Assizes in 1848, the judge at Liverpool issued Bench
warrants for the arrest of a number of political agitators, and in the
list of the names of those parties, published in the newspapers, mine
was included. As I had always kept within the limits of the law, and as
I had received no visit from the police, I supposed that my name had
been inserted in the list by mistake. And as I was allowed to remain at
large for six weeks, I felt confident that it was either some other
Joseph Barker that was wanted, or that my name had been mentioned as one
of the parties to be arrested, in jest, or to frighten me into silence.
And the probability is, that if I had kept at home and remained quiet, I
should have been permitted to go on with my business undisturbed. But I
had an engagement at the end of six weeks, to give two political
lectures at Bolton. Just about that time a vacancy occurred in the
representation of that Borough, and my friends there, without consulting
me, put me forward as a candidate for the vacant seat, and announced my
lectures as a statement of my political views, urging the people to come
and hear me, and judge for themselves, whether I was not the fittest man
to represent them in the National Legislature.
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