6 AUGUST 1937, Page 6

The " vote for the Devil " anecdote goes back,

it appears, a good eighty years beyond the date when (as I mentioned last week) it was related by Laurence Oliphant to a 'friend then standing for a Scottish constituency. In Mr. John Bailey's Dr. Johnson, and his' Circle the retort is put into the mouth of John Wilkes When he stoodfOr Middlesex in 1768. Here, presumably, we have reached the uhiniite origin.

JANUS.