The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1882-03-14 00:00:00

Aunt Gulag exprtoo.

DOROKIEITSB, ILAROIi 14th, 18811.

THE MILITIA RECRUITB.

The time having coon in which so many Dorset
shire lads come to our town, to receive a preliminary
wens Si military training, it will doubtless suggest
itself to many thoughtt al pecans if something cane,'
be dose in the interviste of these young fellows. This
Ii a matter which we have brought up on many
previous oceraione, but keowing well—se indeed any
Wean Who prams through our streets at night can
well testily—the dangers and evils to which they are
imposed, we sone venture to ash it something cannot
be devised which will militate in a great measure
waist* and counteract some of the disgraceful and
Motions influences which now so openly exist. With
the outer soldiers it may be a totally different
sod • wh more ibliloult task, but with the class of
yaw nuatry —many of them mere boys—the
ditbaulty to reach them to easily surmountable. Moot
soecepuble to goof or evil, any effort in took Imbed,
we are et" Co most highly appreciated, and one needs
only to point back to the priceless labour. of an
estimable lady, now deceased, in proof of this. do
long sad nobly did that Lily devote her time and
tmergiem la the rause to which we are alluding, that
whets railed to her rest, her LOIS OMNI painfully
apparent, aud anyone used not go far to have brought
most f oroibly and pilaf ally to his mind the deadly and
baneful influences to which the young soldiers are
comma Aly exposed. fra usual minim,* aeriptitre
reanng and the Ike, are not indica:int, and do not
meet the Gem: what is wanted 1. 50100 system of pro-
viding enjoyments of a harmless kind, which will, an
a vast degree, supply that mailed for wood pleasures,
which is ultra the beetautag of We cod. Probably it
may be thought utter.), vein and umlaut to flogging
anything, but when the thoughtful inhabitante of the
town Gall to muid the evils, watch are the cures of
Dorobaster and freer garrison sown la Me country,
they will, we feel sure, re-oho our wish that some
agoras should be made in behalf of the Militia lade.
Although the cloture resolutions an delayed—and
delayed its mod people think to make way for • more
ahem tight between the Moues of Commons and the
House of Lords—the Premier has lost no whit of his
dourgagggigg to pass them, and that without amend-
=mt. The Liberal party will not Worm so many
egetera defections in the division as were anticipated.
ig•ay wayside have become resigned to the will of
Mr. Guarani, and the Liberal federation. An
itsdepeedrat Liberal has tried to get up an insur,eo-
- an the roues of hts party in favour of a cloture by
a majority of two-thirds, but he found himself utrablg to
smug any support, and the tra ear.lia of • cforaire by a
two-thirds majority appears to have been abandoned
by both parties.
The Jumbo mania is something extraordinary. It
le not merely that visitors are flocking in thousands
every day to see him, and that he is fed with con.
lectionary in a manner in which no animal from the
time of the Creation was ever fed before, but he has also
farad a pleas in literature. His " Life and Advitn•
tune" is being hawked about the streets, and pictures of
him in a aeries on long strips of paper, like the yearly
representation of the Lwd Mayor's Show, are being
vended at the price of one penny. The sacred
elephants of Barrimb are insignificant quadrupeds
°a with the large creature which the British
l:Mpg d
one of its impetuous 13130 IA has taken it into
Its head to make a pet of.

The elephant has somewhat obscured the Channel
Tunnel as a subject of conversation. Nevertheless
there continues ts be a mild degree of alarmism extant
upon the topic. It is urged that lion. tunnel is suc-
cessful 4 bored, there will soon be others, so that the
bed of the silver streak will become honeycombed with
railway lines, to the great prejudice of navigation, and
=illy to the great annoyanceof fishes, as well as to the
to the commonwealth by opening up so many
trap-doors, so to speak, for invasion. There are some
who go 63 far as to say that our be3oming • "Conti-
nental Power" will necessitate the adoption of con-
scription, t 3 say nothing of an extensive and costly
mums of fortification.

When we do bec mie • Coutinental nation, let us
hope that we shall adopt some Cootiaeotal customs, if
not conecription. In pastel matters, for example, we
lag shockingly behind the rest of Europe. Reforms,
which are adopts I &brawl by a mere stroke of the pen,
take years to be socompli.hed under our more eolights
end constitution. The parcels post has lons been in
operation abroad with the greatest advantage to c sm.
storm, as well as with prolit to the Government In
ntldthe matter bee been agitated about for years.
,aaalthougb we have now an sou:whin; and *lever
podsnaeter, we seem to hays but little prospect of
obtaining this pea:Real bo in. It is not only that
legislation is at • deardlock ; there is is • great
faelassticity about our departmental systems.