20 DECEMBER 1873, Page 2

Mr. Bright has always been too sensitive to personal attack,

but we have hardly ever known him so little equal to himself as in his reply the other day to a letter from a Hyde gentleman, who informed him that a clergyman of Hyde, the Rev. Alex- ander Read, had attacked his "presumption and impudence for having nicknamed "the poor working-men" of England "the residuum," which Mr. Read interpreted as being Latin for the dregs of the population. What Mr. Bright did say was that there is "in all, or nearly all, our boroughs a small class of which it was true that it would be much better for themselves if it were not enfranchised, because they have no independence whatever ; and it would be much better for the constituency also, if they were excluded ; and there isno class so much interested in having them excluded as the intelligent and honest working-man. I call this class the residuum, which there is in almost every con- stituency, of almost hopeless poverty and dependence." There was, as far as we can see, no harm at all in saying that, which is strictly true. But it was a passage certain to be turned against Mr. Bright by those wk o wanted to show that his democracy did not save him from exclusive principles, and Mr. Read turned it against him. Mr. Bright replied that 4, the statement of this slanderous clergyman is false," and he advised Mr. Read to stay in his pulpit, where he could not be contradicted, since, on the platform, he was, "what is not uncommon in the hot partisan -priest, ignorant and scurrilous." Now, though Mr. Bright obviously did not intend to describe as residuum "the poor working-men" simply as such, but only a certain class of poor working-men who are also wanting in high moral quali- ties, the misrepresentation was far slighter than many which are very common in political warfare, and we confess we think the extreme violence of Mr. Bright's rejoinder a greater error than the much less serious violence of Mr. Read's attack. Statesmen should show more fortitude than to smart like this under mis- representation, especially when they have nothing to retract. Serenity is the best of all superficial evidences of a good cause, and though those who have a good cause often lose their serenity, like Mr. Bright, and some who keep their serenity often have not a good cause, it is undignified and hardly manly to lose it on such slight provocation as this.