The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-09-12 00:00:00

TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER 12. It

NOTES OF THE WEEK.,

There are eight degrees of rank in the peerage,
and three divisions of the degrees. First
members of the Royal family being peers of
Parliament, next the lords spiritual, and then
the lords temporal. The first and last are
hereditary—the lords spiritual cc-officio. The
, precedence is as follows :—Royal dukes, arch-
bishops, dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts,
bishops, barons. Each rank of the lords
, temporal has a further sub-division, there being
fire degrees of each step from duke to baron—
viz. those of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great
Britain, and the United Kingdom. Some of
the Scotch and Irish peers sit by election, and
others through holding qualifying peerages of
lower ranks. They are invariably addressed
by their higher titles, but the division lists of
the House of Lords only concedes them the
style by which they are summoned to Parlia-
ment. Thus, for instance the Earl of Cork is
known to the "tellers" as Baron Boyle. There
are Scotch and Irish peers without seats in the
Lords ; but the latter may ait in the Commons
for British constituencies, as Viscount Pal-
merston did. The marquisate of Lorne is a
peerage vested in the Duke of Argyll, and
givem by courtesy to his eldest .on. The
nobleman who bears it is not a peer in any
sense of the term. Lord Beaconsfield is an earl
of the fifth degree.

It is stated that Dr. Gully has left England
for France. The loss of his estimable presence
will scarcely be regretted. Mrs. Bravo is also
on the Continent.

A careful analysis (by Mr. William Stokes) of
the official returns for the present House of
Commons gives these particulars :
War Members • 240
Commercial Members
Agricultural Members
Lawyers 125
The War Members consist of the followiig :
Captains
Lieutenant-Colonels
Colonels l2
Majors sad Major-Generals 2B
Lieutenants and Cornets
War Members by close family relistnatip 17
Naval Service . 9
Officially connected with the 'Services" 39

240
The representation of the people of Great
Britian by the members of the present House is
in the following proportions :
Population. Electors.
The War Members represent 12.750,749 ... 989.790
The Commercial Members represent 7,980,078 ... 929,483
The Agricultural Members represent 8,900.417 ..• 445.921
The Legal Profession represent ...... 5,351,833 ... 551,299
These calculations make it evident that
the preponderating element in the Commons
must ever be in favour of a large war expen-
diture!

The interest of the war debt in 1876 is £37,700,000
The cost of the Army and Navy in 1676 is 27,035,000
Total E. 54,735,000
It is thus evident that the British people
are spending for war purposes alone, above six
thousands pounds an hour, by night and day,
throughout the whole year Is it wonderful
that an increased income tax is imposed upon
the country! What besides can be expected of
such a policy I

The machinery of the Post Office is a
marvellous triumph of human ingenuity, and
the rapidity and general accuracy displayed by
the officials in the transmission of letters,
parcels, and newspapers are equally wonderful.
From the report of the Postmaster-General
it appears that during the year 1875 more than
1,008 millions of letters paned through the
Post Office, in addition to such trifles as
eighty-seven millions of post cards, and nearly
two hundred and eighty millions of newspapers
and book packets. Of course many of those
went astray from the carelessness of the
persons posting them. For instance 25,500
letten were posted without any address at all,
and in these there were £5OO in cash and
£6,000 in cheques. Such wilful recklesiness
cannot be too severely condemned. It is
amusing, too, to notice the strange objects,
animate and inanimate, which find their way
into the bags. Thus there were posted, during
the year, silkworms and gentles; flowers, fruit,
and vegetables ; various kinds of gains; wearing
apparel; models of metal fittings and toy,;
leeches, snails, eggs, six white mice, a sparrow,
two snakes, a crayfish, and, above all thing;
else, a dog. Several of these, being prohibited
articles, were sent to the Returned Letter
Office. The dop was posted at the Lombard-
street office, and, having fallen into the bag
affixed to the letter-box, was, curiously enough,
not discovered until the contents were turned
out at St. Martin's-le-Grand. The animal
must have been a small one, and of a very
contented disposition, to have remained miugly
ensconced among the letters without giving
tongue. Among the curiosities of the Report
are a reference to a letter from a father to a
daughter bearing the delightfully vague address,
"She lives in some part of Liverpool ;" and
the temporary failure of a wall letter-box in
the West of Ireland, the native, declining to
collect the letters after dark, as the ghost of a
white turkey haunted the spot. Superstition
clashing with the penny postage system is
indeed a strange commentary on the civilisation
of the century.

The Earl of Wharncliffe is to be the new Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, and will take up his
residence in the sister isle before the close of
the year. Lord Wharnclitfe has already been
advanced from the dignity of Baron to that of
Earl by Lord Beacone&ld. He may yet come
in for a Dukedom, as Aberoom did for his
services as Lord-Lieutenant, though Aberoom,
by the way, in addition to innumerable other
titles, WA already a Duke by a title three cen-
turies old when his Marquisate of Aberoorn was
turned into a Dukedom. Lord Wharncliffe is a
Stuart of the Bute family. His grandfather,
the first Baron, was • grandson of the third
Earl of Bute. This branch of the family
assumed the surnames of Wortley and
Mackenzie in addition to that of Stuart. They
now bear the name of Stuart-Wortley.
We now know why the United States three-
hundred-million-dollar loan has been kept so
quiet, and who has paid for all the advertise-
ments. Sixty millions sterling of it was sent
over to be placed in this country, and this sum
was bidden for by three separate associations of
bankers, but at last an arrangement w come
to, and • syndicate formed—which as
is the "high
polite" for "a rjpg" to keep the public out and
divide the profifl among themselves. The
syndicate have taken the loan at par and interest
leas one-half per cent. commission, out of which
they pay all expenses, including the printing
and delivery of the bonds. If the public had
been let in, as in France, the sum would pro-
bably have been subscribed many times over,
and issuing the loan for a short time only,
instead of for 15 years, the United States might
have redeemed it, perhaps, by a four per cent.
loan, which is now impossible until 1891.
Governments that employ bankers as syndicates
to take up their loans in the lump sum certainly
do not buy in the cheapest market.
No sooner has the Hour collapsed, under
financial difficulties, than the rumour is
circulated of another daily which is to appear
and to take its place. The Hour failed as the
organ of the Low Church and ultro-Protestant
party; the Daily Express, which is to appear in
its stead, Is to be the organ of the extreme High
Church. If report speaks truly, the Daily
Express is not to fail on account of the sinews
of war. £120,000 is said to be the capital sub-
scribed. Nearly £lO,OOO were spent in advertis-
ing a London venture called the Circle. It
collapsed in six months.