Mr. Gladstone has heaped coals of fire on the head
of Sir John Holker, the Tory ex-Attorney-General, to whom he has offered a Lord Justiceship of Appeal, in the place of the late Lord Justice Lush, which has been accepted. It is a credit to the Prime Minister to have ignored the distinctions of party in making this offer, especially as Sir John Holker did, some few years ago, select Mr. Gladstone for a very personal kind of attack, by which, it is almost needless to say, that he lost more in the House of Commons than he profited in Preston, where the attack was made. Sir John Holker, however, is a thoroughly sound lawyer, and though a political Tory of a rather antique type, is a genuine law re- former, having introduced into the House the reformed Criminal Code, which it is much to be regretted that he could not at that time pass. Sir John Holker will now be in his right place in the world, and will be exempted from the necessity of talking non- sense to his constituents at Preston on the subject of Fair-trade, of the meaning of which Sir John Holker and his constituents had about as clear an understanding as Alice in Wonderland had of the significance of the slaying of the Jabberwock by the beamish boy.
