Sir Charles Dilke has been making a series of speeches
in Chelsea, in which it seems to have been his object to sustain the part of President of the Local Government Board with something of that superfluity of thoroughness displayed by the actor who, when acting Othello, thought it well to black himself under his clothes, as well as over hands and face. Not a word of moment on Foreign Affairs dropped from those prudent lips, beyond a graceful tribute to the constant courtesy of the late M. Gambetta, as President of the French body with which- Sir Charles Dilke, in negotiating on the question of a commercial treaty with France, had to communicate. If the subject of local government did not really dominate Sir Charles Mike's imagination in all his speeches, he must be a consummate poli- tical artist, for he almost exhaled it. Yesterday week he told the excellent story about an Indian governor who received a telegram, "Tiger jumping about on the platform, please tele- graph instructions ;" and Sir Charles, of course, improved the occasion by descanting on the dangers of a centralisation which renders people helpless to grapple with their local tigers without instructions from head-quarters. His object, he said, would be to deprive the Local Government Board of a good deal of the work which is now expected of it, and to this end he hoped that the County Government Bill and the Government of London Bill would materially contribute. On the whole, Sir Charles Dilke,—powerfully assisted in his canvas by Mr. Mundella, who has thrown more heartiness into the popular appeal than the new Minister himself,—has met with a most cordial reception throughout Chelsea, and the effort of an Irish voter to create an Irish diversion against him in the constituency, failed lugubriously.
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