The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-11-07 00:00:00

Aloroet Coutti Exprtos.,

TUESDAY. NOVEMBER 7. 1876.

NOTES OF THE WEEK

It is curious that so few mothers recognising
the difficulty of finding husbands for their
daughters, do not bring them up with views
beyond marriage, and give them at leaat a
cliamm of some other calling if matrimony
should fail them A man dues not make a bad
husband because he has a profession. A woman
I who Wows that in remaining single she did not
leave herself without interest and occupation
would both double her chanov of marriage and
; be able to judge calmly of an offer when it
I comes.

Tho Women's Memorial to the Queen, on the
subject of the atrocities reported to have been
committed in connection with the present war
in Turkey, has been forwarded to Her Majesty,
at Balmoral. From an abstract made of the
numbers signing in various towns and counties
it seems there were in Hants and Isle of Wight,
856; Caine and Wills, 315; Dorset, 305; and
Somerset, 2,621.

The promoters of the Woinen's Disabilities
Removal Bill have determined to re-introduce
the measure next :session. Mr. Forsyth has
intimated his desire to resign the charge of the
Bill into the hands of its original author, Mr.
Jacob Bright, and Mr. Jacob Bright has
accepted the trust.

Alderman Sir Thomas White, who has been
elected Lord Mayor of London, is a magistrate
for Essex and Middlesex, a deputy lieutenant
for London, and, until recently, was Colonel of
the 3rd Essex Artillery Volunteers. He
received the honour of Knighthood in con-
nection with the Shah's visit to this country,
and was invited, but declined, to stand fur
Parliament at the last election, 110 is fifty-six
I years of age, and has three sons and three
' daughters (one of whom—Miss Ada—will be
the Lady Mayoress).

Recruiting, it is said, is going on much more
actively than has been the case for some time
past; but if all one hears be true, this is to be
attributed quite as much hard times' as to
any sudden increase of the popularity of the
army. Among the men now enlisted there is
an unusually large proportion of clerks out of
employ, small tradesmen who have failed, and
'so forth. We may well be careful, therefore,
in listening to any too rose-coloured accounts of
the increased ease of obtaining soldiers.
Desertion seems to be as incurable and as wide-
spread an evil as ever.

Quietly, gradually, and without any fuss
Gibraltar and Malta have during the last three
months been so supplied with stores food, and
ammunition, that at the former plaCe 5,000, and
at the latter 7,000, men might hold the place
for twelve months against all comers and yet
be in want of nothing, either for themselves,
their big guns, or their small arms. Not even
beer or " grog " would be found to run short.

In view of the unsettled state of affairs in the
East, a movement is on the tapii for organizing,
in connection with the reserve forces, a service
of Volunteer Sick-bearers. That a necessity
exists for such a body is plain, for the total

number of Men trained na.piek 'bearers in the

regular army being under 1,14J0, it is certain
that the regulars could lend no assistance in
this direction to the Volunteen if the necesaity
arose for making use of the auxiliary forces.

There is a wall-founded rumour afloat that
Patti is going G, be divorced from the Marquis
de Cana. It is to be done quietly and a taimable.
For a month past the necessary papers and
documents have been in the hands of the legal
adviser of the chart g dim, but nothing
decisive has been done yet.

" Tawny. nuke room fur your Uncle" is now
being played on the barrel-organs in Paris. It
is understood to be a British hymn.

A meeting of the Mansion House Eastern
War Sufferers' Relief Fund was hold on Friday,
at which the total amount received was reported
to he £1.4,5Z0. On the same day several persons
died. of starvation in England. Such is "the
eternal Stares of things" according to the ideas
of some people.

„
The Spiritualist prosecution has ended as
might from the first have been expected. Mr.
Flowers, whose patience must have undergone
sore trial before the case was over, had two
charges to consider, lie is of opinion that, by
taking money for his sionci., Slade has clearly
brought li:auself within the provisions of the
Vagrant Acts, and he has accordingly sentenced
him to three months' imprisoninent, with hard
labour. Notice of appeal has wee given, and
the whole case will consequently have to he
heard over again at, the next Middlesex Quarter
Sessious. it will hardly, however, take as long
as it has taken at Bow-street. Mr. Flowers, in
passing tiententw, admitted with commendable
frankness that something like nine-tenths of the
evidence which had been given before him had
' been altogether irrelevaio. The simple issue was
whether Slade had, or had not, cheated Professor
Lankester and Dr. Double Instead of this the
inquiry developed itself into a general examine-
!Om of Spiritualism and its claims. Mr.
Maskelyno was called to show, what no one
could have seriously disputed, that any conjuror
can do all Simle's tricks as well as Slade himself.
On the other hand witnesses were produced for
the defence, who solemnly declared that they
had been to Dr. Slade and had witnessed things
I for which they were altogether unable to
account. The beginning of irrelevant evidence
is as when one letteth out water. On the other
hand there is a certain advantage in what may
be called the discursiveness of police-court pro-
ceedings. Everybody now knows all about the
Slade imposture. We have been told how the
table is constructed; how the rape, and
and jerks are produced; how the slate is held
while the wntiug is done how a bit of pencil is
fixed on the tip of the finger with an india-
rubber socket, and jerked up the sleeve again
when it is no longer wanted ; how the more
elaborate messages are prepared beforehand,aud
inscribed in sympathetic pencil ; and how
Whackum pumps the victims in the outer room,
and then posts Sidrophel up in the necessary
details. Slade, in a word, must be given up ;
and in giving up Slade the Spiritualists give up
it very great deal. If Allies was really the
guardian spirit she is assumed to be, she ought
to have kept her widower out of his present
troubles. A single manifestation in Court
would have put the whole trAtter at rest.

Spiritualism has now boon before the te held
for something like 20 years. During the whole of this
time it has done absolutely nothing to establish its
pretensions. The spirits have tilted tables, rapped on
lbsaN, pinched elderly gentlemen and ladies, and per-
lonned other ordinary antics o the conjuror's booth.
gen of eminence in the scientific world have either
clef-limo' to look into the thing at all, or, having looked
into it, t. 11,11 contempt sly thrown it aside. Pro-
fessional moditun are, as II rule, names f the most
disnmutable type; and me& whip, as a calling, is
esti up a ith " eluiri " medical magnetism,"
" free love," ittol other mob alsesiimitions. It is high
time for the more respectable among itrl i, to ask
01011.10%1.e soberly what further countenance they are
willing to afford it, awl on what grounds.

Lord t 'harks item:4..l,l'e appointment to the
commarul of the TI lerer will cause titer vatatricy
in the repn.sentation of the comity of Waterford ; but
it is not thought that the vacancy. will .'cur
It will to ',one time yet before the
Thuuderer is ready fur sea. Let us hope that when in
commission, with a noble lord in ccmniiuni and no
doubt a picked company of ward's-room Otero'. it
1011 not happen, as before, that what is everyoatic
businecs is nobody's. There is evidently a screw
hewe somewhere in our engieeering department in the
navy. The list a casualtioa given the other day in
the Vows is too long ;..• be net down elks:ether to
accident ; and though we have no doubt that Lord
Charles will be a very gallant commander and all
that. we should be infinitely better pleased if some
warrant officer corresponding to the ship's carpenter
in the eld day. of sailing chips had charge of all
arrangements tu connection with the safety of or
ironclade.

N.'hen the Mayor-Elect was uretente.l on Thursday,
according to the ancient cusfAnu, to the Lord Chan-
cellor, the latter felicitated him on bearing the ftAllle
namea—Christian and ..unlainc—a a P4-Clie(VWllßr in
ho. jiluatrauu.. office three hundred years ago. A sir
Thomas White Wi lAfill Mayor in the year 116:1, aml
as be founded St. John's College, Oxford, his name
deserves honourable mention in days when neither a
Lor.l Mayor nor —uyissly else thinks of founding a
college. Isall Cairns Iss,k further OlVasl.llll to remark
that a Lord Mayor stands in the eves of Lis country
loan and in the eyes of foreigner, a. ,ff. aele of
eseechd honour. 'flie bat six words relieve one ; for
It le better to atsuld even on a pinnacle than in some
gee. A. kr foreigners, to them the Is.rd
Mayor is as Awful and 66/{ mysterious a ilersouefie 28
the (beat Mogul.

The Raw the other I lay brought a eaeloto ',barge
against the Adnairmaty, winch we hope Mr. Ward Hunt,
for hi. own was, will he able to repel. It is that the
rz-ont of the Pandora all an auxiliary to t,be
Expedition was little less than a job to oblige

an eminent yachtsman. According to the Ildeo any
whaling vessel would for MO have rendered the same
'services which cost this country £7,000. All that
Captain Allen Young did was to deposit certain tins
in certain channel islands at the mouth of Smith's
t4onn.l; but as the Expedition .li.l not call there, or
pick theni. up, this Pandora proved a rather c whir
letter-carrier.
i A, the Italham Mystery is likely to continue one,
all interest in the neighbourhood bar now died out.
The Priory is to let, but still lies tenantless ; and ws
with 1/r. Gully's house, which is in the market. and
probably for the same reason does not find a pus,
chaser.

Now that Mr. Pullen has returned fr on the Arctic
Expedition, we may expect another little paniphlet of
the "Dame Europa's choot" stanip from him—that
is, if the reverend and ritualistic author of political
allegory i. not too busily engagol in bringing out an
, acomnt of his adventures in the frozen seas. "Dame
Europa's School," by the way, made money as well as
renown for Mr. Pullen. Macmillan and Co., with
less than their usual prescience, refused the manu-
script, whereupon the author had it printed and
published at his own expense in Salisbury, and made
1.42,000 in a few weeks by it. We hope the bracing air
of the Arctic regimui has put Mr. Pullen in better
spirits than he was when he wrote that most odiously
gloomy and disagreeable book called "Modern
Christianity, a Civilized Heathenism."