Mr. Odger's canvas for Southwark promises well. Several meetings have
been held during the week, at which Mr. Odger explained his political creed, pledged himself to go to the poll and not to accept a ballot, and asserted his confident hope that with 12,000 working-class voters in Southwark and a large numberof middle-class supporters, he should be successfully returned. He was, of course, for compulsory, national, and " unsectarian " education, remarking that there could not be any hearty intercourse between the dif- ferent classes of society till the poor were, to some extent, edu- cated. We regret to observe a certain amount of bait thrown out to the Irish voters in the shape of a declaration that if the Government had released the Fenians it would have been an "honourable act,"—we should call such yielding to brutal threats, unaccompanied by the slightest expression of regret for the serious breaches of the law which the Fenians had committed, highly dishonourable to the Government,—but the Irish in South- wark are strong, and Mr. Odger might very likely have thought as he does, even if they had been weak. The best omen, however, for his success is that in a large open-air meeting of some 2,000 persons or upwards, called on Thursday in Bermondsey Square, by Mr. Labouchere's supporters, in aid of that gentleman's can- vas, and addressed by himself, an amendment moved in favour of Mr. Odger was carried by a large majority, while Sir Sydney Waterlow's name does not appear to have been mentioned.
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