the coercion used by the landlords at the late election.
Many letters were read from distant sympathisers;
among them one from Mr. Cobden, which is of interest,
as giving a view of that gentleman's future political
objects:—"One word of a practical kind. The contest
in which you have lately been unsuccessful has been
characterised by an unusual exercise of coercive influence
on the part of the landlords over the tenantry. I am
told that individual cases can be easily proved in
which the hearts of electors were known to be on
your side, while they were forced to poll for your
opponents. I wish you to appoint a committee for the
purpose of collecting facts of this kind, and putting them
on permanent record, so as to be available in fighting
the battle for the only remedy for such abuses of power
—the ballot. Individual cases, when well authenticated,
will do more than abstract arguments, however logical,
to carry public opinion in favour of this, the sole mode
of affording protection to the voter. I look upon a wider
extension of the franchise, or more frequent elections
without the ballot, to be only plans for diffusing over
a still larger portion of the people the sufferings and
oppressions which now characterise our electoral contests.
For my own part, when Free-trade and Protection are
no longer political battle-cries, I shall look forward with
intense interest to the day when a really liberal and
popular party shall organise itself with the pledge never
to abandon the fieid until vote by ballot shall become
the law of elections, as it is already the custom in almost
every society, club, and association in the kingdom."

The Tenant-Rigid Conference commenced in Dublin
on the 8th inst. Mr. Sharman Crawford presided; and
among those assembled to confer were forty-one Members
of Parliament and several priests. The object of the
conference was to devise an organisation and parliamentary
policy for the League. Mr. G. H. Moore, and Mr.
Sharman Crawford himself, thought decidedly that no
member ought to go to Parliament pledged to a certain
course of conduct on any resolutions passed by any body
out of Parliament; and such seemed to be the general
understanding. Resolutions were submitted, having
for their object the securing of Mr. Sharman Crawford's
bill; and the conference adjourned.—On the following
day these resolutions were adopted, and the conference
broke up.

Two recent Political Dinners, the one conservative,
the other whig, are of interest as indicating the views
of the respective parties. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on
the 7th, a dinner was given to Mr. Henry George
Liddell, one of the members for South Northumberland,
by the conservatives of the division. In the course of
his speech, Mr. Liddell revealed his expectations from
the government. "Without entering" he said, "into a
lengthened discussion upon the great political questions
of the day, he might be permitted to say, that he went to
Parliament with the conviction that great reforms were
needed in our financial system; and he thought he
might also safely say, that it was by those reforms only
that relief could be afforded to those interests which had
suffered and still suffer from the recent changes in
legislation. But he had entire confidence in the ability of
that great Ministerial seer who had already conjured
up the vision of a financial system, which, though still
looming in distant obscurity, would ultimately emerge
from its source in the substantial and useful form of a
well-framed budget; which, while it provides for the
necessities of the nation—while it maintains our national
credit—will also give relief, where relief is due, and, if
he might be allowed to use a familiar expression, will,
by relieving the foot where the shoe pinches, enable
that foot to keep pace with the rapid strides which
other rival interests are making. (Cheers.) Other
governments had year by year acknowledged the
existence of great distress in the leading branches of
internal commerce, but it remained for the present
government to frame measures for the relief of those
interests; and he had little doubt both of their intentions
and ability so to do." Similar opinions were
uttered by the other speakers; and confidence in Lord
Derby's ministry was the tone of the meeting.

At the same place, on the following day a dinner was
given to Mr. Ord, the late liberal member for the
borough. A very enthusiastic spirit animated the
company: they loudly cheered the praises of reform
and its progress during the 50 years which Mr. Ord had
sat in the House of Commons, as those praises fell from
the lips of Lord Grey, Lord Carlisle, and the local
leaders. Next to warm eulogies on Mr. Ord, the topic
which found most favour was the growth of popular
power, from the disastrous times of the French revolution,
down to the present day, when, according to Lord
Grey, "no measure which is demanded by the majority
of intelligent and educated men can be long refused, and
no measure which they object to has a chance of being
carried;" an assertion ratified by "tremendous cheers."
Lorld Carlisle energetically denied the alleged decay of
sound whig principles:—"I have heard it often said,
and Mr Ord must have heard it still oftener, and said
too with much positiveness and confidence, that the
whigs, as a political party were extinguished,
annihilated, done for, smashed; and that whiggism
as a political creed, was repudiated, spat upon, dead
and buried. All I can say, if this is true, is, that
I have seen marvellous instances of political resurrection
and political rejuvenescence. Nay more: even now,
when the whig leaders, the subjects of your late toast,
have been removed from office—when we are enduring
the sway of a tory and protectionist, and perhaps more
in will than in power, a reactionary administration—I
feel convinced in my own mind, that the old whig
principle is still full of youthful sap and vigour, and
that, like the oak on Mount Algidos, it will continue to
gather resources and vigour from each descending stroke.
The party may be out of place; their chieftains may be
out of power; they may no longer be on the sunny side
of the street—if men choose to think it so; but I do
feel in my own mind assured that their opinions and
principles will still pervade the conduct of public affairs,
marshalling the inarch of imperial government."
These sentiments were received with vehement cheering.
The young Earl of Durham was present, and spoke
briefly. He was there, he said, to show respect to an
old friend of his father, and to the liberal principles he
advocated during his life.

NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

The New Rules and Orders in the Court of Chancery
have been published. The Daily News gives the
following popular view of the changes in the practice and
course of proceeding which they will effect:—"Let us
endeavour to place before the lay reader the general
effect of the alterations in a chancery-suit effected by the
new general orders, and the act 'to amend the practice and
course of proceeding in the High Court of Chancery' on
which they are founded, and of which they are the
complement. Hitherto the complainant has commenced
his suit by filing his bill of complaint written on parchment,
and summoning the persons against whom he
proceeds by means of writs of subpœna to appear and
defend themselves against his complaint. Beyond the
fact that a bill had been filed, which he was required to
answer, a defendant in a chancery-suit could know
nothing of the nature of the proceeding against him until
he had taken, at considerable cost, an office-copy of the
bill; and practically each defendant had to take an
office-copy. Then, after an interval of time—though
shortened of late, still needlessly long—the defendant
must put in his answer to the bill, though perhaps he
admitted or denied all the allegations of the hill, or perchance
had no knowledge, one way or the other, about
any of them. But know he little or much about the
questions asked, the defendant must answer; for the
practice, under a modern general order, of serving a copy
of the bill, had only a limited application. Then of
every answer, useful or useless, the plaintiff had to take
an office-copy; and the accumulation of paper in suits
involving many details, or much documentary matter,
or to which there are many defendants, often becomes
perfectly frightful. Then the power a plaintiff had to
compel a defendant to set forth in his answer in so many
words, lengthy accounts and documents, was constantly
made an engine of much oppression. In a case within our
own cognizance, involving some disputed mercantile