Mr. Campbell, on Friday week, brought up the question of
-county government. He wanted to supersede the magistrates by -municipal councils for counties and county districts, and made a -.good though somewhat scholastic speech. Mr. Bruce replied in -the official way by saying Government must wait for the report -of a Select Committee now sitting, and Mr. M‘Laren took occasion to make himself unpleasant to big people generally by stating that Dalkeith Palace was assessed at £200 a year, and a papermaker's ?factory at £1,200; that all Sutherlandshire paid only £50 house Dunrobin Castle included; and the Earl of Stair's Castle was -assessed at 1150,—facts to be registered for the next county debate. This one was quite useless, being out of season, and we must .seriously warn the county reformers of one terrible blander into which some of them show a tendency to fall. They must dis- tinguish more carefully between the administrative and the judicial powers of the Magistrates. If the country once imagines that we :are going to have elective judges of any sort, no matter how limited their powers, there will be an end of the reform and the -reformers. We are not going to import the very worst of American -abuses, or to have candidates for the Bench "stumping around" and promising to be lenient to poachers and village thieves.
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