On Monday Mr. Roebuck addressed his constituents in the Albert
Hall, Sheffield, in defence of himself and the Government, and in favour of his own re-election at the next dissolution, both for his own sake and Lord Beaconsfield's. He asked what single act for the benefit of the people he had failed to support, and expressed his belief that though he is old and feeble, his mind at least is strong :—" I know who is my enemy, and I thrust at him. Such, then, is the man now before you." We cannot say we should think of asserting for a moment that there is much mental difference between the Mr. Roebuck of 1878 and the Mr. Roebuck of 1866—when be opposed the Liberal Reform Bill. He is quite as competent now as he was then to tell who is his enemy, and quite as competent now as he was then to thrust at him ; but he was always much more competent for the latter function than for the former. Once he thought Mr. Black, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, his enemy, and thrust at him ; but he was not really Mr. Roebuck's enemy at all, though Mr. Roebuck was his. Mr. Roebuck always knows whom he hates, but he usually hates the wrong people, and if by any contingency he does not, he repents himself in time, and transfers his hatred from the right people to the wrong. Anyhow, thrusting at his favourite enemies is hardly a proof of special strength of mind, though it is certainly quite consistent with all the strength of mind that Mr. Roebuck ever had.
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