The Liberal Two Hundred of Southwark are doing their best
to discredit the Caucus system. They have asked intending candidates for the borough to deliver trial sermons before them, and though Mr. Brodrick indignantly declined, four candidates, Sir John Bennett, Professor Thorold Rogers, Mr. Leicester, and Mr. Watkin Williams, M.P. for Denbigh, consented. The Two Hundred heard the four, and were very much amused and interested in the speeches, and in the heckling of the candidates -which followed. The speeches were poor, Mr. Williams's being mainly a defence of his conduct in voting for the credit of six millions ; Mr. Leicester's, a declarition of his own independ- ence; Sir John Bennett's, a statement of his civic career ; and Mr. Rogers'a, a rough attack on the Government, in lan- guage evidently lowered to the meeting. Successive ballots were then taken, and the other candidates being winnowed out, Mr. Thorold Rogers was accepted by the Association. We dare say he will make a good Member, but he will be a bad one just so far as he is the delegate of an Association which could hit on such a scheme- for testing a candidate's merits. Is there a man among them who would choose a lawyer or a physician in that clumsy style
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