13 MAY 1871, Page 1
Dr. Ball made the hottest and Mr. E. A. Leatham
the wittiest speech of the evening, the former, of course, revenging on the Government the crime of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and the latter filling his speech with taunts on the ill-requited support rendered by the Dissenters to the Government, and on the quality in which Mr. Gladstone had surpassed all his pre- decessors, namely, the "receptive attitude of his genius." How long, he asked, were a party of Dissenters to follow a Cabinet of Churchmen? Mr. Leatham spoke well, but it is a pity for a man who has nothing of Mr. Bright's weight of passion, to imitate BO closely the indignant accents of that great model.
