The two Parliamentary elections reported this week are rather remarkable
for their striking agreement in one principle—that of not putting "the right man in the right place." If Sir Charles Napier was somewhat past the day when he would be useful on his quarter-deck in the Baltic, he certainly was better suited to that post than to the seat for Southwark, which he has now secured until the approaching dissolution of Parliament. And Captain Joliffe, who has got in for Wells, ought not to be at home at all, but at the head of his company in the Crimea. He belongs to that lengthened band for whom the impudent little drummer por- trayed by Punch this week is pleading, and who ask Sir James Simp- son for leave to come home on "urgent private business." Wells could have waited until Captain Soli& had fulfilled his duty ; or if that important borough desired to take a leading part in the ensuing debates on the conduct of the war, there was Sergeant Kinglake, who was likely to supply a much more effectual Parlia- mentary handling of the subject than the young captain can com- mand. There must, however, have been a practical reason for the choice of Wells; and we find it in the fact that the successful man had the aid of those who are well acquainted with the recipients of charity funds in the district and strong in the countenance of episcopal favour. Nor, we suspect, do Liberal tacticians dislike the election of a tractable though Tory ornamentalist to the House of Commons ; who will probably go with a division at the House in as docile a spirit as with a division before Sebastopol.
