The death of Lord Elgin will be a loss to
Great Britain, but India will have compensation. The man of all men alive bait quali- fied to govern the empire has been set to do it. Stirred into promptitude at once by the event, and by a disaster on the north- west frontier, where five officers and sixty men have been lost in an ambuscade, the Ministry on Monday appointed Sir John Lawrence Viceroy. The selection has been received with a shout of pleased surprise, which testifies at once to Sir John's personal merit and to the public belief in the strength of Whig exclusiveness. Sir John is beyond the charmed circle, had not even married a daughter oat of the Whig houses, and people had given him up as a power always to be kept in reserve. His appointment will be felt through. out India as a tribute to the character of the Services, and will, for one thing, postpone the inevitable Sikh mutiny for at least another five years. Sir John sails, it is reported, on the 10th inst. ,—confidence in Sir William Denison being a very limited quantity,—but we trust before he leaves England he will have been made a Peer. When a man has to rule the caste among whom he has passed his life, every atom of social weight tells heavily on his side.
