The dismay caused by the Brigg election, falling so close
as it did on the heels of the Forfarshirc election, was ex- treme in the Gladetonian camp. All the Gladstonian papers encouraged each other to "cheer up," but none of them cheered up. Mr. Labouchere was interviewed, and only remarked that this came of potting a second-rate Peer at the head of the Government ; and the Westminster Gazette made a most pathetic appeal to Sir William Harcourt to come to the rescue ; but Sir William Harcourt abode in his tent, and made no sign. Then at length Lord Rosebery, who had long been engaged to make a great speech at Devonport last Tues- day, did what he could to put a little hope into his dispirited followers, but he was too modest to feel much hope himself, and 89 his encouragement did not come to anything. The Devonport speech was made, and those who read it, said with a rueful smile, that though they could quite agree with Lord Rose- bery that the next election might not turn out leas favourably to them than the election of 1892 did for the Conservatives, yet they could not well abolish the House of Lords with a majority of 40 against them,—which is a very just remark, but not one calculated to fill Gladstonian hearts with joy.
