22 FEBRUARY 1868, Page 2

A member of the Committee for promoting the election of

Mr. Lowe for the University of London writes to Tuesday's Times to deprecate depreciating criticism on the claims of the various candidates as unusual in " University elections." This is a curious statement, and not quite consistent, as far as we remember, with the facts of many an Oxford and Cambridge election,—the contest between Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr. Gladstone, for instance. The London University Conservatives are, we believe, at present debat- ing whether they shall support any of the present candidates, or start one of their own. How can they discuss this question without examining the antecedents of each ? How can they decide on Mr. Lowe's case, for example, without weighing anxiously the merits of his fierce denunciations of the people, as delivered in the session of 1866, against the demerits of his fierce denunciations of the Con- servatives as delivered in the session of 1867? Without ample verge for criticisms of this kind on all the candidates, we do not see how so delicate a question can be settled.