The Freethinker

I am laughing my ass off at people who still try to defend these Catholic creeps (http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/22/we-did-not-know-that.html -- see comments), and I'm also quite happy that boing-boing led me to The Freethinker (http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/05/21/%E2%80%98we-did-not-know-that-child-abuse-was-a-crime%E2%80%99-says-retired-catholic-archbishop/), started in 1881 by Charles Bradlaugh's successor in the NSS, GW Foote. I wasn't aware it was still in print!

Foote wasn't the biggest fan of Bradlaugh, but I suspect that as he became an insider and later a leader of the National Secular Society (Bradlaugh nominated Foote to be his successor, and he served as President for 25 years), Foote came to appreciate the difficulty of the position. He always retained his own character, though, and never became a clone of Bradlaugh. This is why the Freethinker survuved to the present, and the National Reformer dwindled and disappeared after Bradlaugh's death.