28 JUNE 1890, Page 2

Whether Mr. Caine will be returned again for Barrow-in- Furness,

is important only because it will show how far English electors resent this kind of political pettiness. Per- haps the best result of all would be a very emphatic rejection of Mr. Caine, and the next best an extremely low poll, showing that the electors attach very little significance to the whole matter. But the latter event is very unlikely. Mr. Caine has been perfectly honest, and in his own way earnest too ; but it is a question what earnestness means when you get down to so feeble, a sense of political proportion as his. Could one call a man earnest exactly, whose whole soul expressed itself in an enthusiastic devotion to coffee-taverns and penny-readings, and benevolent devices for keeping people out of harm's way P