'we do not mind admitting there is one obscure contributor
who looks anything but dyspeptic—as hungry as a wolf—and does wear an eye- glass, and most of our contributors try to think a little now and then. But hard as they try, none of them as yet understand distinctly why a man with an eye-glass is necessarily imbecile, or at least self-con- victed of inability to adapt adequate means to the end which the country wishes to attain with regard to Reform. The use of an aye-glass shows at least a praiseworthy willingness to adapt a double-concave or double-convex glass, to remedy the unfortunate -deficiency in the crystalline lens. That is a sane and even rational step. What we are disposed to complain of in Mr. Leathern is, that he does not adapt the remedial reform he proposes to the end the country has in view, but to another and quite different end. He never speaks without making quite a parade of not adapting his means to his end ; of ridiculing the attempt to give a substantial representation to the working class, without taking a new step towards causing the ultimate disfranchisement of all -other classes. If the result of thinking a little now and then is that it tends to adapt means to ends, we shall still humbly aspire to it, in spite even of Mr. Leatham's confidence, shown both by precept and by example, in the opposite practice.
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