14 NOVEMBER 1868, Page 2

Mr. Coningham, formerly the firebrand Member for Brighton, is seized

with a sudden aspiration for political moderation, and is contesting that constituency on the ground that Professor Faw- cett is too " extreme." To show his moderation, Mr. Coningham has addressed a very ill-bred letter to Mr. J. S. Mill, who has been speaking at Brighton for Professor Fawcett. This is a sample :—" You are said, Sir, to be a very great philosopher. You have proved yourself an unscrupulous sophist and a very bad politician. In your recently published correspondence you reveal some of your secret aspirations. Among them is one with which I cordially sympathize, the one in which you express your readi- ness to have retired from Westminster in favour of Mr. Chadwick, for in him we should at all events have had a man, and not a ' Book in Breeches." Mr. Coningham is no doubt terrible in his wrath,—but also a trifle vulgar.