A Mr. Acland has appeared as a missionary of a
new cause. He is going round to all the corrupt little boroughs lecturing them on the evil of their ways, doing, in short, the kind of work a first- class Bishop could do, and ought to do, but will not. His last halting-place was Droitwich, where, however, the people evidently had no conviction of sin, but declared their borough was not rotten ; whereupon Mr. Acland retorted that the Droitwichers were only pure because, as there was no contest, it was not needful to corrupt them. Next time Droitwich asserts her purity let Mr. Acland get up the history of 1853, and Sir John Pakington's pleasing proposal to make the place rich beyond the dreams of avarice by giving it a monopoly of the Indian supply of salt. That would have been the result and was the object of his pro- posal to abolish the Indian tax oh the imported article. Had philanthropy been the motive, he would simply have abolished the salt-tax altogether.
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