15 MAY 1880, Page 2

Sir William Harcourt has been defeated at Oxford by a

majority of 54,-2,735 voting for Mr. Hall, against only 2,681 for the Home Secretary. So, for the present, the Home Secre- tary cannot appear in Parliament. The defeat is due to many causes,— to Mr. Hall's prudence, in not too much personally identifying himself with the late Administration, — to Sir William Harcourt's unwise zeal for the Public Worship Act, —to the personal popularity of Mr. Hall,—and to the personal enmities produced by Sir William Harcourt's not very lambent wit. But such sudden gyrations of opinion discredit a consti- tuency, whatever the excuses for it suggested by particular circumstances, and Oxford does not stand the better with any one for its change of front.