On Wednesday was celebrated the twentieth anniversary of Mr. Shaw
Lefevre's election as M.P. for Reading, and the dinner, at which 350 guests were present, was followed by speeches of unusual interest. First came Mr. Lefevre's review of his political career,—a review of curious interest,—since it re- minded us that at the commencement of it, Lord Palmerston thought the policy of Reform already exhausted ; while Lord Russell preached to his supporters the doctrine, " Rest, and be thankful," and this though, after twenty years of active, and, as some think, violent progress, we appear to be only on the threshold of the sort of reforms in which the masses of the people feel the deepest interest. Mr. Lefevre enumerated as the direct results of Mr. Disraeli's Household Suffrage Act, the Education Acts, the Disestablish ment of the Irish Church, the Irish Land Acts, the Burials Act, the Agricultural Holdings Acts, the Ground-Game Act, the Married Women's Property Act, the Artisans' Dwellings Act, the Aboli- tion of Purchase in the Army, and the opening of the Army and Navy to general competition, with several other changes of minor importance,—a really remarkable catalogue of reforms, of hardly any one of which even the strictest Conservative would now venture to dispute the beneficent character.
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