The Colston Festival at Bristol on Tuesday was shorn of
its usual honours. Mr. Forster, indeed, delivered to the Liberal audience at the " Anchor" an important speech, on which we have commented at length elsewhere ; but the poor Tories at the " Dolphin " had only Mr. Cave, who bad very little to say, said it very badly, misquoted " Hudibras," and we rather suspect, though we will not affirm it, wished to say that the voice of " Society " was the voice of God. At least he did say, according to the Times, that after the storm of last autumn " a calm, small voice" could be heard, which declared that the only policy compatible with the interest of the country was the policy of the Government. Mr. Cave believed that straws showed the way the wind was blowing, and a meeting of the agricultural labourers of the West held in May was a most valuable straw. Members of the late Liberal Government wrote "sympathising lettere "—that is, we suppose, letters of excuse—to that meeting, and the meeting passed resolutions " that all cultivable land should be given in charge of a representative body," that " all permanent pasture should be converted into arable," and that "game should be confined to pens and closes," which last, said Mr. Cave, in accents, we hope, of sepulchral horror, would " compel the Duke of Beaufort to hunt the fox in a paddock, with hounds adorned with collars," Whence we may deduce that foxes are game and not vermin, that the object of law is the pleasure of the Duke of Beaufort, and that Mr. Stephen Cave would make an admirable leader for Conservative Sioux or Arapahoes, or other tribes who plead that the grand design of the Great Spirit is that Indians should have room to hunt.
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