The metropolitan elections are, hitherto, however, the great success. That
no Tory has been returned is little, for we had no Tory before, but the electors have shown a discrimination and a preference for intellectual and moral eminence which is quite a new feature of metropolitan constituencies. In the City the youngest member, Mr. J. G. Goschen, was put at the head of the poll, for his eminent recent services to the Liberal cause ; in Lambeth a very respectable local candidate was ejected in order to put Mr. Thomas Hughes at the head of the poll. In Westminster Mr. Mill's supporters placed him within nine votes of the Hon. Captain Grosvenor, who was so little inclined to a strict alliance that he dealt a hard blow at his great colleague on the hustings ; and some who analyzed the polling assert that Mr. Mill was not carried in by the Grosvenor influence, but would have beaten Mr. Smith without his aid. In Finsbury the cowardly attack made by Mr. Cox on Mr. Stansfeld was avenged by his total defeat by more than a thousand votes, and Mr. MacCullagh Torrens, a man of unquestionable ability and culture, was placed far ahead of his colleagues at the poll. In Marylebone Mr. Chambers is a good exchange for Lord Fermoy, though we fear the epithet of " Irishman " had too much to do with that noble lord's defeat. The metropolitan Liberals have on the whole shown a very high standard of political judgment.
