Lord Folkestone has no delicacy of feeling, or he would
not contradict so late as Friday the report of a speech which was copied in the Times of Tuesday, and so give endless trouble to conscientious editors who had taken his supposed ebullition as an admirable peg for instructive observations. But as a matter of fact, we must assume that at the Conservative Association which held its sitting at Salisbury last week, his father's (Lord Radnor's) offer of a double baron of beef for next Christmas in case the Premier had gone " the way of all flesh "only applied to the dissolution of the Ministry, and not to the dissolution of the man. Even thus limited, however, the Earl of Radnor's offer of a double baron of beef was hardly equal to the occasion, at least if it were intended, like the old practice of paying blood- money for wolves' heads, to hasten the event on which the bounty is promised. Though the leading man in every Conservative association in England should follow suit, we fear that this truly baronial generosity would be quite void of effect. But perhaps the Earl of Radnor had no notion of hasten- ing the result, but was only seeking the highest lyrical ex- pression for his feeling of hypothetical joy,—which would quite naturally embody itself in Christmas beef.
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