The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-04-18 00:00:00

A MYSTERY.

In the neighbourgOotr of Chelsea on Sunday it was
reported theta robbery and murder had been committed
at No. .18, Mamie-grove, in that parish. This house it
seems, has been kept by a Mrs. Porter, Stl, a widow, who,
although in good circumstances. has been in the habit of
taking In lodgers. For about two months her drawing.
room floor has been in the occupation of a Mr. and Mrs.
Wallace. On Wednesday evening last Mrs. Porter com-
plained of faintness, but, matte had been subject to fainting
fits, little notice was taken of it. She, however, became
worse, and Mr. Whitfield, surgeon, of 21 Hollywood-road,
West Brompton, WWI sent for and prescribed for her. On
Thursday she was visited by Mr. and Mrs. Wallace, the
former stating that he was going out of town, and Mrs.
Wallace expressing her intention to accompany him to
the Chartng.cross Railway Station. A cab was fetched,
and in the presence of one of the servants the driver warn
told to drive to Charing-cross Since then Mr. and Mrs.
Wallace have not been seen nor heard of. They took with
them several large boxes. Soon afterwards Mrs. Porter
was found dying, and with what seemed to he the mark
of a blow over her left temple. She appeared to be anxious
to speak, but was unable to dose, and died %frame night.
A large quantity of jewellery wee then missed, including
a ring taken from tie deceased's finger. A gold watch and
chain had been taken from her room, besides • caahinere
shawl. Mr. Whitfield made a poet merles' examination,
but on Saturday night he was unable to certify as to the
cause of death, and the contents of the stomach have been
sealed up.to be analysed. Mrs. Porter's son, aged 5, stated
that just before Mr. Wallace went away he saw him
" romping" with his mother.

SEEING PEOPLE OFF.
Eh Way. perhaps, be an amiable weakness--still it is a
weakness —to decline to he contented with wishing our
friends (toil-speed in the privacy of our homes and to Insist
on accompanying them to their point of departure: in
hurt, on "seeing them off." Nobody particular wishes to
do it, and everyone especially detests being the object of
the valedictory rite; still, either amiability or inausetee
sac prevents a peremptory atop being put to the ',Mee..
There are few things that the average Briton so conlially
detests as any demonstration of feeling in public, and to
an intelligent observer the amount of bearish grumpiness
be displays towards those determined to "see him off " is
a tolerably fair test of the measure of feeling he is
struggling to conceal. Of course, in speaking of feeling,
we are only referring to journeys that are expected to
remove the beloved object from his home for a consider-
able period ; and equally, of come, we aasume that those
se amiably desirous to see "the very, very last" of him
are the female portion of his family Dear Augustus has
been spending • week's leave with his family in London,
and the time has arrived when he must rejoin his regi-
ment at Manchester. lie does his best to select a train
that will render it impossible for " Min= and the girls"
to accompany him to the station. He is • good-hearted
y fellow, and does not like to tell them plainly that
he wishes they would stay at home : but by no ruse can
he succeed in baffling them, and is obliged to accept the
position of looking extremely foolish while mamma tin.
pions him to button his greatcoat and Maud and Lucy
Insist on giving him farewell kisma. And yet, did be but
know it, could they all but come to an understanding, his
feminine telongings are seatfi. themselves for his sake
as heroically as he is for theirs They dislike the draughty
station ; the dusty platform moils their pretty dresses; and
they are as glad as he is when the bell rum, and, accom-
panied by frensied gsstmculations of farewell appropriate to
an eternal erparaiion, the train moves slowly out of
ught Agustin', however, has one remedy in his hands
which reduces his sufferings to a 111446.44401, and of which,
to do him justice. he seldom fails to avail himself he
can enjoy the masculine satisfaction of 'running it fine,"
and can Mum materially curtail the period of penitential
endurance. It fares far worse with his sister Caroline
when she sets forth to pay • week's visit to her cousins in
Surrey. It is neither • long nor • formidable journey,
she has performed it in safety many before, and
she very properly dislikes time .many time
'fuss" of being soom
palsied to the station by her affectionate family, and does
not hesitate to tell them so. But it is of no avail. Mater.
families, who thinks nothing of her girls walking about
Belgravia alone, and allows them to go to Prince • under
the worse than no chaperonage of a fast young married
friend, conceives that some deadly peril lurks within the
of • railway station, and cannot be persuaded that
=ag
e and her maid can be safely trusted to take the
tickets and seat themselves in • first thus carriage. As
consequence of this curious conception, the hapless
Caroline is landed at the station at least half-an-boor too
soon. "so that we may have plenty of time," Materfa.
tallies discoursing sagely on the time to be allowed for
"blocked" streets, stem-rollers, and half-a-hundred
carnet. evils ; and if, as is probably the case, she resolutely
declines to sit in the stuffy waiting-room, where infante
are howling and fractious children being pacified with
&when. cakes,
_the family party FOONSiIs to perambulate
the platform, Ilaterfamilias unable to comprehend why
each train that takes its departure is not the one required
However, at last time ti ckets are obtained, the train made
up, and Caroline is advised te get in at once, which she
Is ready enough to do. No sooner, however, has she
Settled herself and disposed of her impediments than
there comes the suggestion, "There's a quarter of an
hour te wait; had'ut you better walk about • little r
But the victim, if wise, remains firm. Next she hears
instructions given to the guard to be quite sure no one is
put into the carriage, which unless pecuniarily enforced
are naturally disregarded and the carriage filled, necessi-
tating hurried removal of bags and baskets. Then pro-
bably comes a question whether she would not like •
biscuit, luncheon having been over barely an hour. As
the moment of departure draws near injunctions to write
and my Me arrived safe are reiterated with a fervency
which woes an intelligible distrust of the safety of our
railway system; each member of the group says in turn,
"I hope you'll have a nice journey," as if such a thing
were possible when among the fellow passengers are a
teething baby, and a canary bird inc cage which threatens
momentarily to topple on her head; and finally, as the
train begins to move, there is a frantic rush to shake
bands, at the iniminent peril of the immolation of the
entire family. All this may be delightfully affectionate,
but it is unspeakably ridiculous; and yet it may be wit-
nessed any day at any station in the kingdom. There is
one form of friendly torment from which the traveller
leaviag London is free, but which is chronic in the
Provinces—that, namely, of thrusting a huge hunch of
flowers into the detaining hands at the very last moment.
The same flowers packed in a Nuke; cot ered with cool
green leaves, would be a pleasure and • benefit, enabling
the recipient to preserve for a day or two in her London
drawing-room a reminiscence of the sweet country sights
and smells. But who does not know the fate of the bunch
Hastily gathered, tightly tied, unprotected from sun and
dust the delicate flowers quickly fade, and exhale,
instead of their natural perfume, the ickly odour uf
incipient demo% They are gemerallY thing (*rout the window
before half the jimmy,' is accomplished; or, if retained it
Is only by the possessor of an unusually scrupulous con-
awawaa wlie, wishing to say when writing to announce her
room so
seesaf..-anikeells' .t'lleirmourtilcharmisiom
l the istteraisenwrin'ata time
save her
veracity. But perhaps the member of iniciety who say
most cruelly from the !ease of being • seen off" is the swawh schoolboy. To mum it is • positive Imminence,
Izettng that he is still a child, instead of the men of the
be so fondly fancies himself and that he is not
ceriasna camelo of taking care of fiimself, while he re. The members of the Established Church are very
=sisigeith use quintessence of contempt the worldly of its feminine batmen" It is barbarous to apt to complain of encroachments of Nonconformists
gpell his pleasure in his asset from Eton by insisting an uP?tt their domains, and, perhaps some rosy be of the
eineveying Idle to the station and so depriving Wm of Use °Pmion, at times needlessly. But no one will be able
iseigallifituniont•prideinsTd. gtt delithe
uont
are closing
driving up at tiTrint_. swea too., that the Rev. C. A. F. Kuper, of Prilleck,
may fans the discomfit of a hates tariwhiner 16uumotith, was unduly harsh when he obtained for
we onceWitilella His devoted t, to put it mildly, time Rev. Henry Whatley, Baptist Minister, a fine of
ir;maim blamed on sowing the wham is whiwa 20e. and costs for trespass. This rev. Baptist it would
bor'hiji°,rnan'avel'aniandast uprnadhis ethrmhimt.httWitth farg"";:lanhis rea„ fis'atthereada
mofenend,, ea:oaring. to realise the iharact.i. er: of
urns ins attention to the
saw weiatcoms, and not to over-heat himself SS Crlall a
That boy, who was about rave a sivb Partridges. It was whilst engaged in that pursuit that
the piper, and endeavoured lookTke a he unlawfully traversed the lands of
at the Zlice court with the
result above Mr. Rupee,
young t town with indifferent success, when blazed away at a covey, and
=bawl if to
PoSarl2 ,
is mother reappeared' presented him with • ,
a large jags tart, and as the tram started ren alluded rcx ne rev, gentleman had evidently !
kuniasabraos.t whyrish otommtinalola not have given tishe Lehmnia thud: made a mistake as to the nature of the " Bock "he is I
called to look after.

Foot-and-mouth disease, as someone wittily
designated rinks and spelling bees, is rapidly
spreading in London. Of rinks the Metropolis
boasts at present 30, and others will soon be
open to the intense satisfaction of the doctors.
About the same numberof Bees are held nightly
to the profit of the promoters and the delight
of those very particular ladies and gentlemen
who regard a game of whist as a deadly sin, but
don't mind spelling for money. Here is as chance
for some of the young ladies who have distin-
guished themselves at our local Bees. Miss
Lizzie Anderson, daughter of the Wizard of
the North, offers to give a handsome prize to
the lady or gentleman who will read and spell
any word forwards as quickly as she will read
and spell the same word, blindfolded, backwards.

The sailors on board Portugese vessels lying
In the London docks, celebrated Good Friday in
their accustomed manner by thrashing an effigy
of Judas Iscariot which they afterwards hung at
the yard-arm. As Jude. has now had a very
liberal amount of this treatment, the custom
being very ancient, we would respectfully suggest
to Mr. Cross that on the next anniversary he
places a few of our garrotters and wifebeaters at
the disposal of these stalwart mariners, with a
selection from the scurrilous writers on the
Englishman, should it then exist, thrown in.

There are 64 chaplains employed on board Her
Majesty's ships, whose pay amounts to £15,658 los, a
year. There is only one at L-365 I ss, and as many as
32 (the lowest pay) lit £219 per annum.

It may well seem strange to us, when we find the
national expenditure nearly eighty millions per annum,
to be told that little more than too years ago the
revenue collected for thecivil list and for all the charges
of Government, ordinary as well as extraordinary, was
only‘ 1,200,000 annually. This was t 660, the year of
the restoration of Charles 11. Even this was con-
sidered a leap which justified grounds of apprehension,
for in the reign of the merry monarch's predecessor
£895,000 was considered amply sufficient for al! pur-
poses ; James I. made £600,000 meet every contin•
gency ; Elizabeth found Z 500,000 en •ugh, Mary
450,000, and Edward VI. required no more than
Zaco,ooo, which in our time would not suffice to put a
single iron-clad upon the sea. Without going further
back into the pages of histoiy. it si ill be seen that in a
little more than three centuries, the national expendi.
tyre has increased from £400,000 a year to seventy-
seven millions ; while it was quite as high in the timeof
William the Conqueror as in the reign of Edwanl VI.,
although nearly sot years separated those two periods.
On tracing the progress of the nation down to the
times of the Georges, it was found that the expendi•
tore was constantly growing. The splendid victories
of the Duke of Marlborough, whilst Queen Anne was
occupying the throne, ran up our obligations very
considerably, and for more than a century following it
appeared impossible to keep them within what was
deemed then a reasonable limit. In the year 1788 the
cost of the American war had with other contingencies
made the expenditure exceed fifteen millions per
annum ; twelve years later it stood at thirty eight
millions, for we were then engaged in that struggle
with Napoleon which was to end only at Waterloo
half a generation afterwards. By the time that war
closed we were spending 65 millions a year, but by the j
accession of William IV. this sum had bees reduced
by ten millions. Five years subsequently it had been [
reduced to the very respectable sum of fifty millions
annually. When Queen Victoria ascended the throne
in 11137, the expenditure was about fifty-three millions;
it is now seventy-seven.

-
LIGAL
Soccr..—We are pleased to note that Mr.
T. COOMIW junr., of thin tow% has been admitted a
solicitor of the Supreme Court of Judicature.

E.ut STAWIiEIUIW.4 AND I ‘UCCIIIIGIL4. —S4OIO fine
.Arawberries and cucumbers were ...nada in our market
on Saturday, the produce of the garden of Mr.
Christopher, 01 Upwey.
I)ORCHISIBT6R TOTAL AINTIVETICE Socueer.—The
Committee of the above society announce an enter-
tainment at the Wesleyan School-rooin, Durngate-
street, on Friday evening next, when a lecture will he
given by Mr. H. F. Hallett, of the Dorset County
Temperance Association.

Dosser FRILVDLT Swint'. —Br advertisement in
another column it will be seen that the annual meet-
ing of this excellent society, of which Mr. G. If. Davis,
of this town is the secretary, will be held on Easter
Thursday, at Swanage. The members go in procession
to Church at 11 a.m., and the meeting takes place in
the Mowlem Institnte. As Englishmen believe no
work can be successfully carried on without "the
inner man" being well attended to. there will be a
dinner of the "right sort" at three o'clock.
• --

A VICIOUS ANIMAL. —On Saturday last, as a bull,
belonging to a resident of Kin,ston, was being .lriven
to the fair tell, when near the bottom of 'Olinlgitt*-
street it atta ked 3 boy 11313.,1 Painter, who ran for
refuge behind the railing,' outiide the new Primitive
Methodist Chapel. The bull pursuing the boy ran
full tilt against the pillar adjoining the gate, and with
such force that it comiutly knocked it with the rail•
ingi to the ground. The animal afterwards attacked
a postman, who had a narrow escape by darting on
one side.

COVIIVITZI) TO TUC DoRSZT COUNT, PRISON. —Hord
Labour: Theresa Jane Smith, stealing shawls and
other articles at Sherborue, G calendar months ;
Henry Way. stealing a swan at Burton Bradatock,
weeks; Charles Everston, wilful damage to • horse at
Weymouth, 1 calendar month; Joseph Tatchell, steal-
ing money, &c., at Lytchett Minster, 14 days; Job
Hawker and Caroline Roberts, drunkenness, &c., at
Weymouth, 7 days. —Further Etaminaties: Charles
Coventry, stealing a shirt nod cap, &c., at Chickerell ;
John Brown, sting a watch and chain at Fording-
ton.

THZ WKATHM —The following 11 our meteorological
report :

,
' Looted
Date. Noon. Point at Wind. i State of Weather.
Night.
April • ' I I—
,
10 48 31 I 8 1 Rain
11 41 29 , NW . Fine, snow slightly
12 37 33 NW Snow, fine, slight snow
13 I 311 I 29 ' NW 41 s N . Rain, fins, snow
14 , 38 1 30 NI , Pine
15 45 , Si , NI ' Fine
14 , 43 , 34 NE Plne

COUNTY Pwrrr Scams, Saturday.—Before Col. Macll
and Mr. G. Churchill.

Jokss Hans Littlehredy, aged IQ ap
having been remanded on bail from Monday lain, cramergedd
with stealing a whip, value 4a., the property of Charles
Clayton, of Porteshant.
It appeared from the evidence that in October last.
Clayton sent his nephew named Chainey to Mr. Roper's
barn with a horse and waggon after some oat chat, he at
that time having a whip with him, which he either put on
the front of the waggon or against the gate close by, and at
that time he saw the prisoner Hansford near the place, who
shortly after went away. After Chainey had loaded and
was ready to start, he missed his whip. In a short tune
after, Hansford returned and was asked by Chainey if he
had seen the whip, to which he answered "Nob" and
assisted in searching for it. About ten days ago the whip
was found in the possession of Mr. Legg, dairyman. of
Littlebredy, who stated that he bought it from Jarnex
Hansford. brother to the prisoner, who was called as a
witness and proved that he received the whip from the
prisoner in October Inst.

r-iiiTtrZes;eii";;;;.c;ll.Zd for the defence amongst whom
we. prisoner's father, who stated that his son found the
whip about a quarter of a mile from the barn.
The Bench severely reprimanded the father for his
conduct in the affair, and discharged the boy.
The case hotel nearly two hours. Mr. Howard prose-
cuted Mr. Symonds defended.
Charles CO•Wbirlf, a sailor, was brought up in custody on
remand charged with stealing from a shipmate ore
Guernsey shirt, one cloth i•ati, and one knife from the ship
Annie belonging to Mr. Vertale, of Weymouth.
the prosecutor having gone to sea, prisoner was re•
suandesi till Saturday next.