There is nothing a candidate hates more than a practical difficulty; he feels discomfited by it. It destroys the harmony of his periods, the sweep of his generalizations. All such things he dismisses as detail, ‘which need not now detain us, gentlemen.’ Herein, perhaps, consists the true happiness of the candidate. He is the embodied Hope of his party. He will grapple with facts--when he becomes one. In the meantime he floats about, cheered wherever he goes. It is an intoxicating life. Sometimes when candidates and members meet together--not to aid their common cause at a by-election, but for the purpose of discussing the prospects of their party--the situation gets a little accentuated. Candidates have a habit of glaring around them, which is distinctly unpleasant; whilst some members sniff the air, as if that were a recognised method of indicating the presence of candidates. Altogether, the less candidates and members see of one another, the better. They are antipathetic; they harm one another. The self-satisfaction and hopefulness of the candidate, his noisy torrent of talk ere he is dashed below, his untiring enunciation of platitudes and fallacies, his abuse of opponents, the weight of whose arm he has never felt--all these things, harmless as they are, far from displeasing in themselves, deepen the gloom of the sitting member, into whose soul the iron of St. Stephen’s has entered, relax the tension of his mind, unnerve his vigour, corrode his faith; whilst, on the other hand, his demeanour and utterances, his brutal recognition of failure on his own side, and of merit in his opponent’s, are puzzling to the candidate. The leaders of parties will do well if they keep members and candidates apart. The latter should always herd together. To do candidates justice, they are far more amusing, and much better worth studying, than members. THE BONÂ-FIDE TRAVELLER.