Candidates, electors, journalists, and all persons who read news- papers
were shocked on Tuesday by a rumour that Mr. Disraeli intended to postpone the elections. A universal groan went up from political society, all women did suffering angels, canvassers began to think of suicide, and journalists talked of an association for mutual protection, which should prosecute any person guilty of an election speech after November for wilful nuisance. For- tunately the rumour turned out false. Mr. Disraeli recollected that the awful sentence once threatened by Sydney Smith, that of being preached to death by wild curates, is being inflicted on every Englishman who can read, and, being personally a kindly man, forbore. The writs will issue on 11th November, the elec- tions will be over by the 20th, and in three weeks more, exhausted human nature will be free from its present duty of reading the multiplication-table a hundred times a day.
