Mr. Samuel Laing has carried the Orkneys by a small
majority, only 25 in a constituency of 1,537, of whom 1,298 went to the poll. The Radicals had a very poor candidate, Sir P. Taft; the landlord influence, which is fatal, was thrown in his favour; and the islanders are very angry with the Government for refusing their just demands for postal and telegraphic facilities, but the election is still a curious one. Mr. Laing is not a Liberal at all, but an Old Whig, who thinks Lord Derby, Lord Granville, and Lord Hartington ought to unite and construct an aristocratic Government ; who detests all forms of Government interference, particularly with Railways, and who has announced by anticipation his hostility to any Education Ms for Ireland approved by the priests. Bismarck's law against ififr Jesuits is, he says, his ideal of true Protestant progress.
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