26 FEBRUARY 1870, Page 3

Nottingham has returned the Hon. Auberon Herbert, Radical, by 4,971

votes to 4,675 given to Mr. Digby Seymour, " Liberal" with Tory proclivities. This balances the loss at South- wark, Mr. Wright, the retiring member, having been a Tory. Mr. Herbert will be a gain to the House, representing as he does a party which exists in England, but has few repre- sentatives, that of the thorough-going but cultivated Democrats, who really mean equality rather than constitutional progress. It is to be regretted that he did not do his party more justice in /is election speeches. They are pulpy to a degree almost American. The one delivered on the nomination-day begins with a story .about a girl who married a footman and found his calves false, and advises Liberals to pinch Mr. Disraeli's calves because they -would be found false, and ends with a sentence that would have -delighted Mr. Burlingame, " This is the country of the future. I .appeal to the men of Nottingham to march forward in the path of progress with their faces to the sun," that is, of course, totally .unable to see anything distinctly. Mr. Herbert gave the Berkshire farmers better stuff than that, and should remember that in a -country like this every absurdity, however jocular, uttered by an .advanced Liberal, delays the future to which he looks forward with such ardour.