The correspondence as to the contest at Liskeard between Mr.
nommen and Mr. Courtney has been succeeded by a still more trivial correspondence as to the last contest at Stroud between Mr. Brand and Lord Bury. Lord Bury charged Mr. Brand with -discourteous and unusual references made in his speeches at Stroud to private matters,—to remarks dropped in private conversation, and to the fact that he (Lord Bury) had continued to belong to a Liberal Club (Brooks's) for some little time after he had virtu- ally joined the Conservative party. Mr. Brand denied the discourtesy, and disowned a phrase which seemed to charge Lord Bury with a disposition to sail under false colours, but maintained that Lord Bury had really joined the Conservatives while hoping to be accepted as the Liberal candidate for Berwick. If Mr. Brand might clearly have been a little more courteous and temperate, Lord Bury might have been a little leas sensitive, and might have spared the public so uninteresting a correspondence. Politicians who change sides must lay their account for a little invective, and not shrink from the inevitable censure they will encounter. Are we not getting a little too thin-skinned for political conflict of any sort? Our political invective is much milder than it used to be, but our nerves are even more delicate.
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