The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-10-23 00:00:00

Dorset Conutti eximos.

TUESDAY. °craws a. 11177.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

Mr. Delano has tendered his resignation as
Editor of the Times, which has been accepted,
and the poet has been bestowed upon Mr.
Chenery. Mr. Delane remains on duty to
initiate his successor into the mysteries of the
position until Christmas, when he finally retires.
He now vacates office after.thirty-seven years'
hard work.

The Society for the Suppression of Vice was
established in 1802. The principal part of the
work is the suppression of obscene books and
pictures, and, besides prosecuting offenders, the
Society has since 1834 made the following
seizures :

374,106 Obscene prints, pictures, photographs, and
negatives.
56,054 Books and pamphlet., mostly illustrated with
abominable engravings.
5 Tom and upwards of letter-press .4 the same
character in sheets, besides large quantities
of infidel and blasphemous publications.
26,700 Sheets of obscene songs, catalogues, handbills,
8,840 Cards, snuff-boxes, and other article..
98 Grossly obscene models, life-size in wax.
844 Engraved copper and steel plates.
430 Lithographic stones.
158 Wood blocks.
11 Printing presses, with all the tools and
apparatus Ur printing.
02 Cwt. .4 type, including the stereotype of
several entire works of the grossest im-
morality.
How about "the Priest in Absolution r Is
the society afraid to tackle Great Guns ?

A perusal of the annual wreck register,
recently issued for the year ennmencing on July
1, 1875, and ending on June, 30, 1876, ahows
that the wrecks and casualties at sea have been
more numerous than in any previous year since
a record of these disasters have been system-
atically kept by the marine department of the
Board of Trade. The number of wrecks
casualties, and collisions from all causes on and
near the coasts of the United Kingdom, and in
the United Kingdom, and in the surrounding
seas, reported during the year 1875-6, is 3,757,
being 167 in excess of the number reported in
the previous year. Of this large number 502
cases involved total loss, against 472 and 408
respectively for the two previous years. Between
1861 and 1875-6 the number of vessels British
and foreign, which met with casualties attended
with loss of life on the coasts and in the seas of
the United Kingdom was 2,592, involving the
drowning of 12,322 persons. and that in the
year 1875-6 loss of life occurred in one out of
122 of the casualties. Although the greatest
number of wrecks happen on the east coast, the
greatest loss of life occurs on the west. The
whole number if lives lost was 778, notwith.
standing the determined and ceaseless efforts of
the craft of the National Lifeboat Institution.
This number is 148 less than those lost in the
previous year. Of the 171 ships, 143 were
British involving the loss of 580 lives, and 28
were foreign, involving the loss of 198 lives. It
is satisfactory to find that 4,358 lives were saved
during the year 1875-6 by the life-boats of the
National Lifeboat Institution.

The war haa claimed another victim who will
be missed by many Englishmen. Major Leader,
one of the correspondents of the Daily Teleyroph,
has died from fever at Phillippopolis. The
number of correspondents who have been spared
from illness has been very few. Of the 810 er 90
who were in the field with both armies, more than
twenty have been knocked up by illness. and
Major Leader makes the fourth death. This
gallant young officer had seen a deal of hard
work in the field, first in the Franco-German
war, and more recently with the Carlists in Spain.
He was a ripe scholar, anexcellent linguist, and,
physically, one of the most handsome of men.

Another serious lock-out is threatened on the
Clyde, in which will be involved about two
thousand men. The employers have determined
to discharge all the men employed by them who
are in any way connected with the Ironworkers
Union.

At Newmarket, just previous to the running
of the Cesarewitch last week, the Ring was
surprised, and not a little appalled, by the
spectacle of a lady appearing within its sacred
precincts. Nor was the lady's adventure there
confined to appearance, for as one of the book-
makers was shouting out after the manner of
his kind the odds he would lay against a given
horse, the lady produced a dainty book, and
lifting up her voice said, "I'll take you ; two
hundred to "ten". The Knight of the Pencil
turned round, however, and, raising his hat,
said, "I never bet with ladies."

The Van. Archdeacon Denison, speaking at the
annual meeting of the English Chnrch Cnion, said he
knew for a certain fact that Sir Stafford Northcote, the
leader of her Majesty's Government in the House of
Commons, the night after the vote on the Burials Bill,
said to a friend 1 his, "I have learnt a thing from
the Bnrials Bill vote which I never expected to learn,
and which I never shall unlearn, and that is the
sooner the bishops are out of the House of Lords the
better." (Cheers.) He added : Two year ago they
dragged us through the dirt—And very dirty dirt it
was—about the Public Worship Regulation Act, and
now, when we try to do something f or the Church, 15
of them would not come near um. The sooner they are
out of the House of Lords the better,"

Mr. Knox-Little, once a master at the Sherborne
Kings' school was the only preacher at the recent
Congress who bad the audacity to say • word in favour
of confession. He himself was veryguarded in his state-
ments, and, While recommending his brother clergy to
hear confessions, made the reservation that it should
never be insisted upon as necessary to salvation. Even
this induration of the much-discussed practice would
probably have provoked a storm, but by a fortunate
conchlence the president of the evening, the bishop of
St. Alban's, had, according to custom, insisted upon
an entire abstinence from expressions either of
approval or disapproval owing to the sacred nature of
the subject, personal religion and thus Mr. Knox.
Little was heard in solemn silence. If confession, Is
not necessary to salvation whatever excuse can be
found for it '—That it enables young clergymen to
gratify a prurient curiosity and to sully the minds of
young girls with beastly suqgestions?—Would Mr.
Little, we would ask him, like his own wife to c mime
to a " Priest- in .A boolation "-primed Parwm ?

A good many correspondent' have written to ask WI
who is Cleopatra? Probably, if we replied an
IgEtineedlewoman whom exploit in the way of
nig pearlish treasures dissolved in wine before
the admonition was given-' cast not, /c.c.,- it would
be scarcely considered satiafacttny we, therefore,
present the reader with what our Lempriere tells us:
"Cleopatra. Queen of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy
Anletee, celebrated for her beauty and cunning. As
she had supported Brutus, Antony, in his expedition
to Parthia, summoned her to appear before him.
Arraying herself in a magnificent attire, she appeared
before ber judge in a most captivating style. Her
artifice sticoseded Antony became enamoured of her,
and publicly married her, forgetful of his connection
with Octavio, sister of Augustus. This caused •
breach between Antony and Augustus, and they met
at Actium, where Anthony perished. Cleopatra fled
to Egypt, and there destroyed herself by the bite of
an asp, so as not to fall into the concueror's hands.
She was a most voluptuous and extravagant woman,
and in one of the feasts which she made to Antony
she melted pearls into her drink to render her enter-
tainment more sumptuous and expensive. She was
fund of appearing dressed as the goddess Lie, and
advised Antony to make war against the richest
nathms to support her de‘Nincheries. Her mental
perfections are so highly cslebrated that she is said to
have beau able to talk the languages of 'even different
tutti ,us as fluently as her own. She died in B.C. 30,
after a reign of 24 years.