7 FEBRUARY 1874, Page 3

If Mr. Andrew Johnstone is thrown out in South Essex,

and he is the only Liberal with the feeblest chance of re-election, on account of his personal popularity, the county will have regained its old distinction of returning only Tories. Two of the great divisions went uncontested, in the third Mr. Perry Watlington cannot be saved, in Colchester Dr. Brewer was defeated, mainly because of an idea among little tradesmen that Mr. Gladstone was relieving the rich from taxation, while Maldon was sacrificed by the persistency of the workmen in adhering to a candidate -whom the Liberals disliked and the Tories hated. Altogether the county may be considered gone, a curious result, when it is re- membered that it was once the Puritan county, that it is still full of Dissenters, and that its tenant - farmers being in the hands chiefly of small proprietors, are more anxious for tenant-right than almost any others in the kingdom. It should be added, however, that while Mr. Courtauld holds aloof from politics, and Sir T. S. Western is ill, and the Petre family is Catholic, it contains extraordinarily few Liberals able to Eght an extremely difficult and expensive contest. The county will ultimately be rescued by tenant-farmer candidates.