The cross-purposes of the daily newspapers are not the simple
caprice of journalism; they reflect movements which are going forward in " distinguished " circles, and represent something which, for want of a better word, we must call "intrigue," to alter the actual distribution of office. We are obliged to speak of this movement in very indefinite terms, because in truth the objects are vague and the means of agitation are equally shadowy. In the present state of the political world, where distinct objects are in abeyance, men can get up understandings, wink suggestions of party movements, hint at combinations, and work principally through the boudoir. "Nods and becks and wreathed smiles" become the machinery for party competition ; and so far have these delicate movements gone, that the question already rises, Who is to be the next Premier? Or, if all the Premiers expectant spoil each other's position, What is to be the next Ministry ? One paper, Ministerial so far as it is French in policy, has become an Anti-Russell organ ; an Anti-Ministerial paper, hot in favour of making Lord Palmerston Minister of War, now becomes Russellite in its antipathy to "the Peelite section " ; while the tremendous Aberdeen organ of the Opposition in the morning press rallies to the Peelite side for fear the Whig part of the Cabinet should over- come the Conservative part. The consequence is a confusion of sides in the press, desperately mystifying to those who are not ad- mitted to the evening parties at which the competition of faction is just at present most sedulously carried on.
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