NEWS OF THE WEEK.
1-1VERYBODY is in a fuss. Parliament was dissolved on 4 Monday. The earliest polls in the boroughs will take place next Tuesday (February 3),' and the lateit probably on Friday. The county elections will mostly fall in the following week, and the new Parliament will be virtually elected by this day fortnight (Valentine's Day), — within -three weeks of the day when the first intelligence of the Dis- solution was received by the public. Another fortnight must elapse before Parliament can meet, in accordance with the pre- scribed minimum of thirty-five days from the dissolution, so that the new Parliament will assemble within less than a month of the -time appointed for the reassembling of the old. The chief effect of the rapidity and secrecy of the dissolution will be, we -think, to give a very great advantage to sitting Members over new men who had not quite made up their minds to stand, rather than to affect greatly the balance of parties. As we sadly wanted better men, we do not rejoice in that result, —though, of course, it might have turned out that the new men, -had they appeared, -would only have presented the splendid incapacities of the old representatives in an exaggerated form.
