TOPICSO1 THE DAY:
THE ELECTION.
THE party journals keep counting noses as Ole returns are announced. " We have gained twelve on the boroughte" said Ole Tittles one day this week : " only eight," answered the Chrtrniele. Rut numbers alone do not decide: there remains the questions which phalanx is the more compact and united ? Great hopes are teeth by the Whigs on the dissensions that ate fo brea'k out in the Toil camp as soon as the party come into power. Dissensions of one kind theie probably will be. Hecate, when acting es an Opposition leader, superintending the mixing of ingredients in the cauldron that is to make Macbeth Premier, says- " Oh well done i I commend prat. pains,
And every one shall share i' the gains."
But we suspect, that even Hecate, with all her infernal auxiliaries, found it impossible to keep her word to its full extent. At any rate, mere mortal politicians are uniformly under the necessity of allowing some of their agents to go without their " share i' the gains." Hence grumblings and mutinies ; and these, of course, PEEL, like all his predecessors, will have to encounter. But such dissensions do not make a disunited party. Even Ireland—the most difficult card Sir ROBERT has to play—does not look so hope- less as might have been anticipated. Mr. WEST'S speech at the Dublin election, and the manner in which it was received, might almost tempt one to think that very Orangemen are learning moderation. Then, as Roger says hi the Gentle Shepherd, " Good Mr. Patrick, tak your ain tale bairn ": are we to have a united Opposition ? We have Whig supporters of the Corn-laws stand- ing beside members of the Anti-Corn-law League ; we have representatives of the Movement mingling with the opponents of Further Reform and, in addition to these discordant elements common to the whole empire, we have a hollow truce established between Repealers and Non-Repealers in Ireland, Dissenters and the High Church party in Scotland. Small wines when soured make passable vinegar, but there goes more to the making of a good Op- position than the wreck of an indifferent Ministry. Poor DICK Wusoit used to exclaim, when any one complained that it was a bad day—" It's a damned bad day that won't serve to make a good night of: shut the windows, and bring pipes and porter." Statesmen are not so easily transmuted : they more re- deeible the quantities in an algebraical equation, which possess exactly the same amount of negative value when transferred that they did of positive value in their original position.
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