The Liberals have been beaten at Plymouth. Mr. Rooker, the
Liberal candidate, a local solicitor, polled only 1,511 votes, against 1,753 for the Tory candidate, Mr. Bates. At the last election the poll stood thus :- Sir R. Collier (L.) 2,086 Mr. W. Morrison (L.) 2,005 Mr. R. S. Lane (C.) 1,508
—se that the Liberal candidate on this occasion polled Only five votes more than the defeated Conservative candidate in 1868, and polled 575 votes less than the highest Liberal candidate of 1868. The dockyard men, who are apt to be dissatisfied with the Administra- tion actually in power, almost all went for the Conservative, while the Roman Catholics and publicans also supported the Tory, the former, we suppose, because Mr. Rooker is a Dissenter and said to be Evangelical, and the latter because he is in favour of the Per- missive Bill. The Jews, after some hesitation, caused, it is said, by Mr. Hooker's having presided at a meeting held to promote their conversion, finally forgave the injury, and voted for him. But, on the whole, as the Standard triumphantly and truly remarks, the victory is only explicable as evincing a decided turn of the tide against the Government. Mr. Gladstone would pro- bably have achieved ostracism in Athens sooner than Aristides ; and even in England he will in the end attain the same honour, and quite as much through his virtues as his faults. Indeed, it is the former chiefly which irritate the English people, while the latter are not of a kind to console them.
