Mr. Winterbotham made his first speech to his Stroud consti-
tuents in his official capacity of Under-Secretary for the Home Department on Tuesday evening. He said that he had neither- sought nor expected office,—" certainly if he did, he went a very curious way about it ; he did not sit, as some did, with his knees- in Mr. Gladstone's back, or his arms round his neck ; but sat at a respectful distance, and did not hesitate when occasion required; to express differences of opinion which arose between Mr. Glad- stone and his thoroughly hearty supporters." No one, as far as. we know, ever accused Mr. 1interbotham of currying favour- with the Administration ; but probably he knows as well as any other man of the world, that a formidably independent line of action is at least as sure an avenue to office as the truckling course at which Mr. Winterbotham aims his somewhat needlessly rude satire (against whom in particular directed we do not know). The rest of his speech was good, especially his plea in mitigation. of sentence against Paris for its disastrous revolt :—" Let them consider that Paris expelled the Orleans family in 1848, the Re- public they established was overthrown, and an Empire main- tained for twenty years all against the will of the people of Paris. There never was a day in the history of that Empire when they would not have got rid of it if they could. They were over-ruled by the provinces of France,—kept down, in fact, by the peasantry. Indeed, at the present moment, when that dynasty had led them to war, and all this dreadful ruin, they found themselves with an Assembly, nominally representing their opinions, but pledged by a large majority to the restoration of the Orleans family and the- Government which they overthrew in 1848. It was not in human nature that men who had suffered so dreadfully from deception should trust these men so readily again.'r Mr. Winterbotham has plenty of the raw material of success in him. The only defect is. that it is still decidedly raw. He wants urbanity and intellectual " detachment."
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