The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-04-18 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.
Corar inheriting its Holy Week
traditions in common with the Church, observed
on Thursday, hence called Maundy Thursday,
the established practice of distributing Maundy
money to 45 poor persona, according to the
years of her Majesty, the Queen, in the Chapel
Royal, St. James's through the medium of the
Right Reverend the Bishop of Oxford, the
Lord High Almoner. The Maundy money is
specially coined for the purpose in threepenny
and other pieces; and finds its way into
cabinets of curiosities for preservation. This
may be taken to represent the Anglican
practice preserved by the Sovereign as
visible bead of our Church, and correspond-
ing with the washing of the feet of
• twelve lazars or beggars by the Pope and thif
Emperor of Austria, for ,it was imitated, wis
perceive, at Clifton this last week, on Maundsy
„ Thursday, by the Hon. Dr. Clifford, the ROM=
Catholic Bishop, who in the course of the
ID; services is stated to have washed the feet of
Weise of the altar boys. Early in the is eek the
Prince and Princess of Wales with the Royal
Infant Prince Albert Victor, went down to
Sandringham, his Royal Ilighnese' estate in
J., Norfolk, attended by the Bishop of Oxford and
t• a brilliant suite, receiving quite an ovation
at the little country station at which they
arrived, and the Prince setting out oharaetariati-
cally on the instant of arrival on a tour of the
home farm to inspect the improvements. His
:t Royal Highness has consented to attend the
s • grand ball at the opening of the Dublin Inter-
national Exhibition in May. Meanwhile it is
reported from Scotland that her Majesty's love
• of retirement and taste for seclusion are not at
all gratified by the prospect of railways being
~ carried farther up Dee aide, and even within
.. eight and sound of Balmoral Castle • and that
numerous photographs have been taken
. from various points of view—every point,
• in fact, from which the railway may be
• perceptible from the summer palace of the
Queen, with a view of determining the effect
NI seen froea the Oaatle. It is not at
all probable that the Queen would interpose
4,, betwixt the convenience of tourists and the
public; but the inhabitants of the district
appear to be alarmed lest the sound and shriek
of the railway whistle, drowning the roar of the
Linn of Dee, might scare away the Court, and
Balmoral cease to be a residence of the Queen.
f. IL—PARLIAMENT is enjoying its Easter recess;
• but although it is not sitting, we have had
several contested elections, notwithstanding the
Intimation given by papers of ministerial inspira-
tion that after July it will sit no more. Louth
• county for instance was contested for even this
brief period, and Mr. Kennedy, the liberal can-
didate, returned by a majority of 101, in con-
sequence of his predecessor, Mr. Bellew, having
been oppointed a Poor Law Commissioner. And
nv again at Rochdale in room of Mr. Cobden,
the choice fell upon Mr. Potter, and a poll
having taking place on Saturday, whispers of a
contest at Oxford University are still kept up,
and the candidate named in opposition to Mr.
Gladstone at the forthcoming general election is
Mr. Gathorne Hardy; but the etiquette of tie
University precludes any candidate it would
seem from pretending to know that he is stand-
ing (!) and hence the degree of uncertantity
which prevails upon this point. The movement
party of reform call for a conference, which they
particularly desire should be attended by mem-
bers of parliament, at Manchester; but it is
feared that the extreme position in favour of
manhood suffrage taken up by the London re-
form delegates, will deter men of moderate views
from seeking to aid in the adjustment of the
franchise just at present.
lIL —Tux CHURCH appears as if putting forth
a new development in the proposition of the
Morning Post regarding poor candidates for
orders. That Journal reminds us that so rapidly
is the Church of England extending, so great is
the demand for curates, that necessity impels the
nomination to curacies of men, if not actnally
disqualified, and if able to produce the certificate
of some theological college. But—it reminds
us too that these "literates" as they are called,
whose means may be narrow, whilst their con-
nections may be respectable, whose parents may
have served in the army or navy, or have been
in many cages in Holy Orders, who in short
ought to constitute and be considered as the

very rank and file from which the army of the
church militant should be recruited—are looked
down upon because a university career has not
been opened to them, are admitted into Holy
Orderis almost under protest, and when admitted
must pursue their work with all the
disadvantages of a lower standing as compared
with a university graduate. Now when even
the Dissenters are thinking of opening a Hall
for themselves at Oxford, surely the suggestion
of a cheap college at Oxford or Cambridge to
t receive these poor candidates for orders is not
so far amiss. It is right, however, to say that
this is not the proposition of the Morning Post
who objects that the distinction of poverty,, the
creation of "poor schollars " of Oxford and
'Cambridge (such as those of Maynooth perhaps?)
would introduce a new element calculated to
•i,suadermine the social influence of our
I Wily 'ties. The Post's plan is rather to
a fund to help men to go to the
ib ..I.lsai who otherwise would not go at all;
=S
miter it with such privacy that the
' given need be known to none but to
skimileas, the applicant or his friends. On
rlikkellia £6,900 would afford grants of not
*wading £lOO a year to 50 university men;
.and we presume we are to look upc n it as
: already a fact accomplished since our con-
temporary names Dr. Jacobson, Regius Professor
,af Divinity at Oxford, and Professor Lightfoot
g'of Cambridge, as those to whom persons who
rWould like to co-operate in this good work may
: apply. In another column will be found part
of a correspondence betwixt Archdeacon Denison
and - a body which has already done much
Itiad, if we mistake not, is destined
eventually to do more for the freedom of public
worship—the National Association established
"for that purpose. The Archdeacon holds the
• whole area of a parish church where there is no
facility pew, disposable from time to time for
the general accommodation by the Church-
wardens as the officers of the Ordinary. Pew
doers he discourages as representing a power of
exclusion from a common right; but he would
incline to limit the accommodation awarded by
the churchwardens to "every parishioner
coming to church or expressing to the church-
warden his desire to come." Where the church
is not large enough the churchwardens are to do
the beat they can. The Association hail the
Archdeacon's adhesion to their cause as showing
that the principles he upholds in Church and
State are compatible with the equal right of all
parishioners to join in the services of their
parish church.- But they do not think the
qualifying words restricting this to those only
who express the wish to come could be adopted,
because the fundamental principles of our
parochial constitution are that all are equally
entitled to the free use of their parish church,
because all are equally liable to be taxed for
church purposes. We return to Mr. Lee's
pamphlet and to the Church of Ireland as the
point of actual combat and of danger. With
regard to the Celtic element which, feeds the
ranks of Romanism in Ireland, so rapidly is it
degenerating that there is every reason to believe
that those who speak Irish only will have dis-
appeared before the end of the present century;
and is the true Irish Church to be destroyed
for them? But this is not the primary objection
taken to the Irish Church, which Mr. Potter
proclaimed down from Rochdale hustings as a
standing injustice to Ireland. When a dissenter
objecta, as he frequently does, that in some of
the agricultural and pastoral shires, the popula-
tion is small in amount, yet that we wastefully
keep up the same staff and pay large salaries,
the answer is very simple. The people of a
pariah are a separate community, in general out
of the reach of the ordinances in neighbouring
parishes; and the Church would be moat
unfaithful to her trust if she left any community
without God or failed to maintain a priest at the;
altar in all time. A still more formidable charge
against the Irak Established Church is that out
of 2,428 ancient Irish parishes, 199, or about 8
per cent., contain no members of the Established
Church. Now it so happens that with exception
of three or four every one of these ancient
parishes is united with others in the formation
of a benefice, and it is the benefice that consti-
tutes the parish, so that instead of 199 Irish
clergymen having no people, there are not above
three or four sinecures in all Ireland.
IV.—The failure Attwood, Spooner, and
Company's Bank has assumed a rather
alarming and portentous aspect, productive of a
feeling of dread in the minds of the creditors,
that complications and difficulties of a serious
character may step betwixt them and the divi-
dend of 11s. 3d. in the pound, which they hailed
with so much delight when told that all that was
required was the ratification of the joint stock
shareholders to atuaction it. The lawyers have,
however, found a flaw in this. The fact of there
laving ieen, as in most such eeneerns, a'
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