The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-08-22 00:00:00

Voroet &nig (Dian.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 24. W 6.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

Londoners are making great preparations for
the next School Board election in November.
Candidates are already in the field, and the
chief point at issue relates to the question of
finance. The present Board has certainly spent
its money in a right royal fashion, and the
school-rate threatens to rival the poor-rate. If
the plans and projects already determined upon
are carried out in London, it is estimated 17
the School Board critics that the present Acl.
rata will be increased to 9d., and perhaps to a
shilling in the pound! But the education given
in the London schools is considerably more
than the three It's. There is drilling, music,
French, in some Latin, and in fact so high-class
is the education that parents of £2OO to E. 300 a
year income send their children to these so-
called elementary schools, instead of to private
institutions.

The letter of "A Field Officer " which appeared
in the Times on Wednesday might very appro-
priately be headed "the Confessions of an
Idiot." "Field Officer" in order to have some-
thing to say on the Bravo murder relates at
great length his experiences of laudanum and
tartar emetic. " When a subaltern in India,"
he says—and particularly green we should
imagine—because he thought " leave " would be
denied him, and he could not go home to
Mamma, he " seized a bottle of laudanum and
swallowed a wine-glaaafull." After this enormous
dose, finding his application had been granted,
to counteract the effects of the laudanum, he took
a large table-spoonful of tartar emetic which
he never knew to be a poison—and this is sup-
posed to have happened six and twenty years
ago--until this washing of the Balhain dirty '
linen in public. Medical aid was summoned,
the doctor and the inevitable stomach pump
arrived, and in about five hours the " Field
Officer" was all right. The inference he deduces
from this is that Mr. Bravo poisoned himself
with tartar emeticnot knowing it to be a poison.
The value of his arguments and the farts of a
narrative which the Editor of the Times calls
"a strange coincidence "may be gathered from
the following extract :—"There is afield officer
now in England who was at my bedside when
the stomach pump was applied. Ha max half tke
regiment." Now a regiment in those days, when
we were somewhat better off for men than we
are now, averaged about 600. So that this
veracious Field Officer had an audience of some
900 men to see the operations of the stomach
pump practically illustrated.

It should be remembered that the title of the
Prime Minister, Earl of Beaconsfield, is pro-
nounced Beckonsfield.

Whatever its disappointments, in a purely
legal aspect, the Bravo inquiry seems at least to
have succeeded in arousing a most portentous
amount of sentimental benevolence. If these
correspondents are to be accepted, as they would
doubtless desire, as the exponents of general
feeling, the inquiry has been of the greatest
possible service to all parties concerned. No one
can deny that, before the second inquest WM
opened, a vast amount of suspicion rested upon
persons who are now represented as being only
a little lower than angels; and if this change of
fooling is the result of the cross-examination,
the redemption has certainly boon cheaply pur-
chased. But for Mr. Lewis and his barbarous
endeavours to force witnesses to toll the truth,
Mrs. Bravo would never have been surrounded
by this army of loyal defenders, and the full
measure of Dr. Gully's social charms would never
have been known.

Although none of the acts of the Government
this Session have roused widespread dissatisfac-
tion, yet the general effect has undoubtedly been
to weaken their hold on the constituencea. This
is attested by the elections fur the Carinarthen
boroughs, and for Manchester, and most strik-
ingly of all, by the election this week for Leeds.
The Conservative reaction of 1874 seated two
Conservative members for Leeds by sufficient
majorities, and the substitution of a Liberal for
one of these seats, by a majority of 3.000,
following upon the Manchester victory, looks
uncommonly like a liberal reaction. It haa been
argued that the defeat of Mr. Jackson at Leeds
had something to do with the retirement of Mr.
Disraeli to the Lords, but this is inure ingenious
than likely. The Homo Rulers at Leeds, after
some hesitation, are said to have voted in a body
for Mr. Barran, the Liberal candidate. This is
a significant fact, if true ; it shows a sad want of
gratitude to the Government for their conces-
sions to the Roman Catholics in denominational
education.

The thief's theory of robbery is not very often
realised by members of the outside public. A
case tried on 'Monday in a metropolitan police-
court puts the matter in an entirely new aspect.
An infirm old gentleman was attacked in the
streets of London, by a man named Gollagher,
who snatched at and made off with his watch.
Gollagher was pursued, and ultimately captured
and brought before a magistrate. In the interval
which followed his capture he imbosomed him-
self, and offered what he considered a sufficient
justification of his exploit. He informed the
police-officer who had him in charge at the
station that "it was a ehame that a blind old
fellow should walk about with& watch and chain
whilst he (the prisoner) was out of work." So
disgusted was he with the rottenness of present
social arrangements that in order to remedy this
small portion of them "ho and another man
had watched the prosecutor for half an hour."
doubtless with an intention of possessing them-
selves of the offender's watch and chain. Nor
was this all, for Gollagher candidly announced
that "if he had got off with the watch he meant
to have bought a donkey and cart and gone
about costar mongering." The honesty of inten-
tion on the part of Gollagher is most pathetic.
The position of such a virtuous member of
society, anxious to command a donkey and cart,
and without any other available means for con-
cluding their purchase than what rested in the
pockets of feeble and useless persons may be
better imagined than described. The worse
partof the story, however, is that this "apology,"
convincing as it must have been to other people,
had no effect on the stony-hearted magistrate.
Gollagher was ignoniiniously compelled to plead
guilty, and was awarded the inconvenient pun-
ishment represented by six month's imprison-
ment. If ever the end would justify the means
surely the action of Gollagher represents such a
CASO.

The murdered Mr. Bravo's will has been
proved under £14,000, the whole of his property
being left to his dear wife. And this is the
man that his slanderers would have us believe
was penurious, mean, and a money hunter, and
who poisoned himself and went before his
Maker with a lie on his lips, in order to spite
the woman, whom in his blind infatuation he
had married.

The Parliamentary Session of 1876, judged
by its statistics, may rank as a busy SCBBIIOII.
The House of Lords sat on 94 days ; the House
of Commons on 125 days. There is a much
greater difference in the number of hours the
two HOMO' sat, for the House of Lords sat for
little more than 200 hours, but the House of
Commons sat for above 1,000 hours. The
House of Lords divided only ten times, the
House of Commons divided 226 times. The
greatest difference of all between the two
Houses is that the House of Lords, meeting at
five o'clock, prolonged its meeting beyond mid-
night only once in the Session; but the House
of Commons, meeting at four o'clock, except on
Wednesday, sat beyond midnight on no less
than 79 occasions. The largest division in the
House of Commons in the Session was on the
11th of May, when Sir H. James's vote of
censure in respect of the Royal Titles Proclama-
tion was negatived by 334 Noes against 226
Ayes. There was but one tie. On one day,
the 19th of May, there occurred the rare cir-
cumstance of "No House" being made; it wss
the day of the City entertainment of the Prince
of Wales on his return from India. The
Speaker of the House of Commons was at his
post on every day except one. How many
members were tired out and knocked up no
record tells.