Xxxv.] GOBDEN'S PROTEST AND MR. DELANE’S REPLY. 889

This letter was not inserted in the Times, and the Editor _ 4925
wrote to Cobdon a reply, of which the following is the sub- x 5s.
BEance tem=The

 Times Office, Dee. 7, 1863.
The Editor of the Zimes presents his compliments to Mr. Cobden, and
oncloses a proof of his letter, which, though it arrived by Saturday's
Post, only reached the Editor's hands last evening. He could not then
give it immediate consideration, but, in- deference to Mr. Cobden’s name,
he announced that it should be published to-morrow.
Ob reading it, however, this morning, he thinks—and he trusts Mr,
Cobden will, on re-perusal, agree with him—that Mr. Cobden has no
right to expect him, upon a pretext entirely irrelevant, to publish a
series of most offensive and unfounded imputations upon himself and his
friends.
+ + + « The facts, however, are shortly these :—Messrs, Cobden and Bright
make two speeches at Rochdale, which are reported in the Times at
anusual length, and with extraordinary promptitude. These speeches
aro discussed elaborately in two leading articles on successive days, and in
each of them certain passages are interpreted as recommending a Tepartition
 of the land among the poor. Messrs. Cobden and Bright are
expressly challenged to disavow this interpretation if it misrepresents their
meaning ; but they make no reply, and apparently accept it as conveying
their true intention.
The speeches, as reported, also remain before the public for upwards of a
week, and the interpretation put upon them by the Times provokes no ad.
verse remark. At last an article appears upon a totally different subject, in
which an allusion is made in a single phrase to Mr. Bright's supposed
opinions, and Mr. Cobden pounces upon this phrase, not that he may discuss
the true interpretation of Mr. Bright's expressions, but that he may make
a vague and most offensive attack upon the Zimes and its conductors.
The Editor declines to permit the Zimes to be made the means of disseminating
 imputations which he knows to be unfounded, and which
are entirely irrelevant to the guestion at issue.

The sensation was tremendous in Fleet Street and Pall
Mall, when Cobden published his rejoinder, not to the impersonal
 Editor, but to Mr. Delane in his own proper name.

To Jorn T. Deraxk, Esq.
818,~You and I have been long personally acquainted ; your hand.
writing is known to me, and I know you to be the chief Editor of the