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Saturday Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 125, 1 December 1877, Page 15

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Mr James Wright, a solicitor of Leicester has accepted an invitation signed by 2000 electors, asking him to become a candidateat the forthcoming election for Northampton. Mr Wright says he is in favour of the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England and of the extension of the county franchise. . ■ r; The Empress Eugene and Prince Louis Napoleon are now staying at Cowes. The other day they attended a mass said at Her Majesty’s special request for the souL of the late Emperor. In the afternoon the Empress and the Prince accompanied the Prince and Princess of Wales in a trip round the island in the royal yacht Osborne. I am, indeed, glad to see that the subscriptions to the Famine Fund are pouring in, but after the distressing accounts L from India this week, it becomes the -manifest duty of the Government to take this famine question in hand. The task of providing relief for millions of our suffering fellow-sub-jects ought not to be be left to private charity, or to the local governments, especially as the latter have no money of their own to spare. 7 The Queen has also been pleased to .appoint William Henry Ravenscroft totobe Auditor and Accountant-General and Controller of the Revenue for the Island of Ceylon, and George Husband B>iird Macleod, M.D., Regius Professor of Surgery, University of Glasgow, to be one of the Surgeons in Ordinary to Her Majesty in Scotland, in the room of Professor Joseph Lister, resigned. History is repeating itself in the East. In 1866, the Austrians were sure to beat the Prussians ; in 1870, the French were confidently expected, by three-fourths of Europe, to beat the Germans ; and when this war commenced, the only question was, of the number of weeks it would require for the Russians to march to Constantinople. Still further, in 1870, it was the Empress Eugenie who gave the final shoves to push the reluctant Emperor into the abyss of war. Now we have seen the vacillating and hypochondraical Czar dragged into conflict by his enthusiastic wife and son. The Duke of Rutland is rather late in forming his committee for the relief of the Russian sick and wounded.. The Stafford House Committee has had a long start, and popular sympathy runs more in favour of the Turks than of the Russians. The Duke of Rutland, however is fortunate in gaining the Duke of Westminster to his side, and with the Marquis of Bute, the Marquis of Bath, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Thomas Carlyle, and Canon Liddon, besides other distinguished personages, to help him, His Grace of Rutland ought to be able to make up for lost time. There is one thing greatly in his favour, namely, that the money contributed will be properly applied, and not find its way into the pockets of a number of corrupt and omnivorous pashas. Mr Montagu Corry’s letter in defence of his chief the other day was ingenious rather than ingenuous. Why affect such virtuous indignation at the report that the Prime Minister is receiving pay in the double capacity of Premier and Lord Privy Seal, and deny it with such apparent warmth , when all the time he very well knows that, up to the end of the year 1876-7, Lord Beaconsfield did draw both salaries ? . What I think is this : - that what it was fitmiid poper for the Prime Minister ;to do in the ■ past year, it is fit and proper for him to do now ; and he, -therefore, should either, go. on drawing the two salaries, as he did without compunction some months since, .or irfefund. the amounts he has been, paid on account o£ the Privy Sealship since he took that office.