12 APRIL 1884, Page 2

Mr. Stuart Wortley, in a letter to Wednesday's Times, vir-

tually admits that the Conservative working-men of Sheffield do desire to see household francbis extended to the counties, though he makes the very path( tic plea,—(1), that the meeting in favour of the Franchise Bill did not fin Paradise Square, as some meetings in Sheffield have done ; and (2), that it was market-day, and that many people present were people from the country, and not Sheffielders. The chairman of the meeting has since written to the Times to say that in twenty-five years he has never seen a greater meeting. But even if Mr. Wortley had been right, which he was not, yet since he had owned the wish on the part of his constituents to see household suffrage extended to the counties, he need hardly, we think, have urged these very feeble extenuations of the conduct of the persons who assembled in Paradise Square. We wonder how Mr. Stuart Wortley, and Mr. Ritchie, and fifty others in the same position, persuade the" Conservative working-men" in their constituencies to overlook their offence in voting against the County Franchise Bill. Perhaps they expect to suffer for that offence by being rejected at the next election. If so, " Con- servative working-men" who insist on their Members giving Liberal votes, must be very uncomfortable constituents for Conservative Members who dislike giving Liberal votes.