Lord Randolph Churchill made a speech at Manchester on Friday
week, which, if invective be the ornament of debate as Lord Beaconsfield once pronounced it, must be considered highly
ornamental. It was really very clever, and a great contrast to the dreary stuff now being poured forth on both sides. Half of it was devoted to castigation of Lord Hartington, whom he pronounced to be weak-kneed, short-sighted, and sulky, but invited into the Tory camp ; and half of it to malicious sketches of the disunion among Liberals. Among them he found the Gladstonian, the Hartingtonian, and the Goschenite, the tribe. of Joseph, "the tribe of Jesse "—Lord Randolph should go to a Sunday-school for a few weeks—and the "infidel gang who swear by the great name of Bradlaugh." Just now, being wearied out, they "are all snarling at each other over the prostrate form of the luckless Goschen." If he were a gambler watching that fight he should stake his money on Mr. Chamberlain, though he thought they all might have the decency to distribute Cabinet offices after the country had called them to power. That is lively abuse, if it is broad and brutal; and the country is so bored that it can be amused even with horse-play ; but the answer to it all may be easier than Lord Randolph thinks. There were Whigs and Liberals before, often far apart, but they worked together ; and there are Moderates and Radicals now, and if Mr. Chamberlain will jest leave off tilting at the steeple, they may work together too. Mr. Gladstone has driven a jibbing team before this, and driven it fast too.
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