The Paris correspondent of the Times reports, apparently on the
authority of M. Combos, that the elections for one- third of the Senate, which have just occurred, are favourable to the Government. He also remarks upon the gradual change of the Conservative Senate into a body perhaps more Radical than the Chamber. The fact is undoubted, and is really a curious one ; for though both are elected by universal suffrage, the Senators are chosen by double election, and as they sit for nine years, they are comparatively independent of their constituents. Gambetta predicted that it would be so; and as far as we see, the tone of the Senate can only be explained by supposing that in France there is much more Radicalism among the cultivated classes than it is usual to assume. The lesson is a valuable one for Constitution- makers, who are very apt to believe that the cultivated classes and the propertied classes think alike. This is not so. A House composed of English professionals would be very different in its modes of thought from the House of Peers.
