Mr. Gilpin made a clever and straightforward, though rather partizan,
speech to his constituents at Northampton on Monday afternoon, "to celebrate the passing of the Reform Bill," which he did by praising the gift and assailing the givers, applying to them Hosea Biglow's mot,— " And if a man can, when provisions is riz so, Eat up his own words, 'tis a mercy it is so."
He quoted Mr. Disraeli's indignant "Sir, Her Majesty's Govern- ment will never consent to household suffrage pure and simple," as the first favourable omen of household suffrage pure and simple ; awl anticipated that whenever Mr. Disraeli should say, "Sir, Her Majesty's Government will never consent to abolish the Protestant Church Establishment in Ireland," the doom of the Protestant Church Establishment in Ireland would have arrived. He recanted his voluntaryism as far as regarded State education, but vehemently protested against endowing the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. He eulogized Mr. Lowe for his destructive ecclesiastical policy, and on that account deprecated any resentment against his Conserva- tive policy on the Reform question. Mr. Gilpin declared his amiable weakness for the ballot, and finally announced his belief that the "leap in the dark" would prove a leap into the light, which is a painful conception, as it implies jumping through some opaque substance more or less likely to bruise our nation's noble features on the way.
