DOUBLE ENTENDRES.
" REALLY, Tom, you ought to take a wife," said the elder SHERIDAN. " With all my heart, father," replied the son worthy of such a sire : " whose shall I take ? " The lax morality makes this " moralizing two meanings in one word" rather startling ; but equal discrepancies of meaning couched under the same phraseology meet us every day. For example—The members of the Anti-Corn-law League have repeatedly declared that they will support at the hustings that can- didate who goes for the total and immediate repeal of the Corn- laws, without making any further inquiry regarding his political principles. By this they meant, not that they were indifferent to all other political questions, but that, believing all parties nearly alike in point of principle, they would leave them to fight their battles, and concentrate their own attention on the emancipation of com- merce. The Whigs have now taken up the cry of restricting public efforts to a reform of the corn-trade ; but their object in banishing all other topics is, to smuggle an act of indemnity for the past and procure carte blanche for the future. Liverpool may elect Lord PALMERSTON and London Lord JOHN RUSSELL, at present, simply as the champions of a moderate fixed duty on corn ; but they will be told hereafter, the one that it has sanctioned the Opium War, and the other that it has recorded its vote in favour of the Finality of the Reform Bill.
By " Stick to the Corn-laws, and postpone every other question," the Anti-Corn-law League meant, " Free yourselves from the trammels of faction" ; by the same words the Whigs mean, "Deli- ver yourselves up bound hand and foot to otir party."
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