30 NOVEMBER 1867, Page 2

The struggle of • Thursday in South Leicestershire is the

most important one of the autumn. The Tory candidate, Mr. Pell, though the grandson of a peer and a man of property, is a tenant- farmer, and would, it was thought, receive many tenant-farmers' votes on that ground alone. His opponent, Mr. Paget, is a Liberal banker and landowner. Up to Friday evening the result of the elec- tion was not ascertained, the Tories claiming a majority of four and the. Liberals of 58. Even the Tory statement, however, shows the immense losses of the party in South Leicestershire, which has never returned a Liberal since 1832, and has been contested only once,—in 1841,—when the Liberal candidate was defeated by a crushing majority. Is South Leicestershire, perchance, one of the counties in which Tories understand the Reform Bill ?