The Liberals seem determined to remove one great spot upon
their escutcheon. Men of all Protestant sects, Jews, and Free- thinkers, have been of late freely admitted to Parliament, but an invincible prejudice has hitherto in England excluded all Roman Catholics. They are believed to number nearly 800,000, yet in the last Parliament they seated only one representative, and he was returned for the nominee borough of which his nephew is lord. This year, however, Bridgnorth has sent up Sir John Acton, a man who of all others most distinctively re- presents the English Catholics, and it is more than probable that next week the Isle of Wight will take heart of grace, get over its fright about the Carisbrooke Monastery, and return the popular favourite, Sir John Simeon, who, were he still a Protestant, would walk over the course. The election of half-a-dozen such men would not only amend all injustice, but serve to correct the mad Ultramontanism of the old Brass Band.
