21 FEBRUARY 1874, Page 3

Mr. Roebuck, the Tory Member for Sheffield, is curiously deficient

in any sense of political propriety. He made a congratulatory speech to his supporters on Monday, of which these were the three points,—that Mr. Gladstone is a political turncoat, and distrusted by the nation as such,—that he, Mr. Roebuck, has changed his mind enor- mously since he began life, and is trusted by the people of Sheffield on that account,—and finally, that Mr. Disraeli is the man of the future, who is about to create "a great glory for himself," and that he (Mr. Roebuck) believes in " the largeness of Mr. Disraeli's mind and the grasp of his intellect." Now a pane- gyric by Mr. Facing-both-ways on Mr. By-ends would have lost rather than gained by a disquisition on the sin of Christian and Hopeful in turning aside into " By-path Meadow," and we cannot think that the homily by Mr. Roebuck, the Radical who has turned Tory, on the sin of Mr. Gladstone for having gradually become more and more Liberal as he has gained in experience, will add much weight to his profession of unlimited faith in Mr. Disraeli, the democratic Tory. "The difference," said Mr. Roebuck, "between what we call Conservative and Liberal is a shadow ;"—with Mr. Roebuck, however, this difference is a shadow thathappens to fall exclusively on "what we call Liberal," and a very great difference that is.