The Tories are amusing themselves by pointing out that many
seats have been carried by very small majorities, and that many small boroughs have turned Liberal. There are small majorities in every election, and the Tories should not forget, in their irritation, that the small boroughs are in their eyes the safeguards of the Constitution, and the refuges of capacity from the tyranny of numbers. Has Lord Beaconsfield made them all Reds already ? As a matter of fact, the Liberals have had the mass vote of the country all along, and in the boroughs which had completed their elections before Friday the Liberal gain is very great. The
Liberal votes in 1874 were 566,000
Liberal votes in 1880 ... ... 720,000 Liberal gain 154,000
Conservative votes in 1874 466,000 Conservative votes in 1880 521,000
Conservative gain ... 55,000 We take the figures from the Echo, a paper which, as Mr. Gladstone telegraphs to Salisbury, has been very staunch, and which, now that the nightmare is removed, will, we hope, get rid of its only great fault, what Carlyle calls "preternatural suspicion." it would see blue vitriol in Tory sugar.
