111. Raikes has had to defend himself this week for
the im- putation which he recently cast on Mr. Gladstone for attending the Carnival at Nice, and allowing himself to be pelted by confetti, as he sat on the knife-board of an omnibus, at the very time when his colleagues were met in solemn Cabinet, to hear the revelations of the Assassination conspiracy at Dublin. Mr. Raikes is not at all ashamed of himself,—which, indeed, we were not so sanguine as to expect that he would be,—and declares in Thursday's Times that this conduct of Mr. Gladstone's was " an exhibition of rather astonishing levity, on the part of an English Prime Minister of mature age." Mr. Raikes appears to think that when a Minister in search of health is persuaded by his colleagues to absent himself for a time from work, he is bound to keep himself in- formed by telegraph of the nature of their deliberations, and to reflect in his features the gravity and responsibility of his colleagues' counsels. Mr. Raikes might, perhaps, persuade himself to act so Pecksniffian a part under the same circum- stances ; but he will hardly persuade the country that Mr. Glad- stone would be the better for going through so ignominious an imposture.
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