The Preston Ballot was going on all yesterday, and its
result c,ould tiot be known for some twelve hours at least after it was concluded,—long after the hour when we must go to press. Indeed, the daily papers will be lucky if they can publish the issue in their morning editions. Mr. Odger has left Preston, so that there will be no division in the Liberal camp; and it is said that Major German's friends not only regard him as an excellent candidate, but are sanguine of success. If they are sanguine on good grounds,—which we confess we can with difficulty believe,—the Ballot will have worked a revolution in the borough, for at the general election the highest Liberal had only 4,741 votes, while the lowest Conservative had 5,700, or all but 1,000 majority. The Liverpool Daily Post of yesterday contains a very amusing account of the canvas, from which it appears that the candidates have been 4' interviewed" almost to death, in order to make up, we suppose, for their exemption from the tortures of the nomination-day. Not only the Home-Rule men, the Female Suffragists, the opponents of the Contagious Diseases' Acts, the Anti-Vaccination Society, the Game-Law Abolitionists, and "the Old Catholics," but "the agents for Thorley's Food for Cattle," "the Early-Closing Men," 4, the Fifty-Four Hours' Men," and finally, "the Hair Re- storers," are stated to have assailed the unhappy candidates. It would seem that the right of voting secretly adds a fresh stimulus to the wish to catechise openly.
