Sir William Harcourt made a fierce speech at Croydon on
Thursday against the Liberal Unionists, in which there was nothing new except a joke about "bogeys," apropos of the re- mark that Mr. Parnell and alliance with Mr. Parnell is the " bogey " of which the Times now makes the most use. "I have known and acted with a great number of eminent bogeys in my time," said Sir William Harcourt. "I remember that Mr. Bright was at one time the champion bogey confess for myself I have rather a weakness for political bogeys. They are very useful persons ; but I prefer a bogey before he is used up. I like him in his state of active eruption rather than when he is smothered in the ashes of his extinct fires. A bogey when he becomes a pet-lamb loses much of his natural character and of his political force." That means, we suppose, that Mr. Bright has become a pet-lamb to the Unionists, having once been a bogey to the Conservatives. That is quite true. But is not that precisely Sir William Harcourt's condition in the eyes of the Parnellites From having been their bogey, he has become their pet-lamb, and more than their pet-lamb, a pet-lamb who can butt more formidably on their behalf, than Mr. Bright ever troubles himself to do on behalf of the Unionists.
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