The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-07-10 00:00:00

Not OE THE WEEK.

I.— OVII, LAST ROYAL WEDDING MIS
inferior to none of its predecessors in
splendour. Her Majesty came out very
differently on this occasion to what she did
on the marriage of her cousin, the Princess
Mary. It was then remarked that the
Queen wore deeper nuntrning than she had
often adopted latterly, and people looked
forward curiously to see how she would act
upon this occasion, which makes the former
I appear worse by contrast. While on the
subject of this wedding, we cannot help
remarking how curiously our Royal Family is
allied to distinguished personages concerned
in late and present complications on the
continent. The Princess Royal married the
heir to the Prussian throne; the Prince of
Wales, the daughter of the King of Denmark.
This caused a divergence of sympathy during
the Dano-German war; and now this must
be incwased by another daughter of Her
Majesty marrying the brother of the pre-
tender to the Schleswig-Holstein throne.
Three parties, with conflicting claims on these
territories, are now directly connected by
marriage with our Royal Family. In the
present civil strife in Germany, another son-
in-law of the Queen (Prince Louis of Hesse,
Darmstadt) is on the side of Austria; so is
also her cousin, the King of Hanover, and
Prince Von Teck, who has just married
another cousin of Her Majesty. On the
side of Prussia there is, of course, the Crown
Prince with his English bride, and the brother
of the late Prince Consort, the Duke of Sate-
Coburg Gotha. Taking all these connections
into account, we may well suppose that our
Royal Family must entertain, what some lady
novelists are fond of calling, "mixed feel-
ings," in regard to the present struggle.

11. Aurrala has succumbed to the
needle-gun. Her military prestige, her
Genera/ Benedek, renowned ifl war and
strateg, her drilled and disciplined armies
:onsprising the finest corps in the world, have
one and all availed her nothing. The King
of Prussia, in person, has led his needle-
gunners through the mountain passes, has
debouehed them on the plains of Bohemia,
and after a valorous but vain resistance, the
splendid troops of the Austrian empire,
quarter of a million strong, have broken and
fled before the face or a little weapon of
modern idventlon, leaving Vienna itself at
the mercy and within a few days march of
their relentless foe. The suspicion is not want.
ing that although the needle-gun has done all
this in seven days, which it might in former
ages have taken as many years to accomplish,
there may have been, notwithstandieg, a pre-
arranged programme,:which the terrible effects
of the new weapon of warfare, said to give
its possessors the advantage of five to one
over an enemy, has only carried farther than
could have been imagined. Nothing like the
disasters that have befallen the Austrian
forces have anywhere overtaken within the
same space or time such a might", hnet.—sant
at least in modern times. And It is difficult
to account for the supineness of General
Benedek, who has hitherto sustained the
reputation of being the most coneummate
military tactician in Europe, except upon the
supposition that in order to isolate Prussia,
it had been arranged that Austria was in the
first instance to fall back and pretend to be
vanquished and to cede Venetia, as she has
done, in order to furnish a pretext for French
intervention. How terribly the needle-gun
has more than realised the former part of the
project, may be fully discerned in the fact that
both Prussia and Italy seem to see through
the possibility of such a manesurre, and both
refuse to desist from following up their
advantages. Thus it may be that if the war
should continue to be prosecuted with the
same vigour with which it has been com-
menced, we may within a very few days see
the terms of peace dictated by Prussia to
Austria in her own capital; or Venetia and
the Quadrilateral evacuated by the Austrians,
called northwards, and not southwards, acros,
the Alps for the defence of the empire of the
Caesars, and left a conquest to the Italian
arms. The latter course of events would
almost be a pity; for although the Italian
armies are armies of liberation in the true
sense of the word, we should fear the effect of
an easy conquest in rendering vain-glorious
the most excitable people on the face of the
earth, whose ancestors, moreover, were once
the masters of the world.
111.--Wz tars Now • CONIEZVATITE
litivirrav, and Reform remains in abeyance

on more. Whether the Conservatives. will

undertake to dea-1--1-tit-1-1- the subject beat
session, or not, is doubtea ; but it would be a
fine stroke of policy if they introduced a
moderate Reform Bill, such as the great body
of the Liberal party could accept, if not ad-
mire. All that is wanting seems to be the
Bill of 1859 with a lowering of the borough
franchise. But we are looking too far into
the future: Ministers will at present have
plenty of work in dealing with foreign affairs.
In this respect it is to be hoped they will
represent Great Britain worthily. For our
own parts we do not see why they should
not. They are all honourable British gentle-
men; there is no lack of talent among them;
and we are not of those who would think
worse of our own countrymen, because of a
divergence in political opinion, than if they
were alien enemies. We have confidence in
Lord Derby and his colleagues as noblemen
and gentlemen of honour; and we believe
they will do nothing to compromise the
national honour or interests abroad. But in
order that they may exert their proper influ-
ence, they must hay° generous support from
Parliament and the nation, until the time
comes for renewing our own domestic
political contest.

I V.-TUERE 18 JUST A TINGZ OF ALARM
felt by certain persons from the fact of the
large open-air meetings iu the Metropolis
which the working men have deemed it desi-
rable to hold for the purpose of expressing
their grievances on the matter of Reform;
and there are not a few of the respectable
and timid classes who go so far as to hint
that such large crowds of dissatisfied citizens
ought to be forcibly dispersed. It is right
that the minds of these frightened indivi-
duals should be assured, not only of the
harmlessness of such assemblages, but of
their perfect legality as sell. Luckily, the
tongues of British subjects are free, nor does
it matter whether opinions are expressed by
large or small numbers. Only let them con-
fine themselves to speech, find a convenient
and sufficiently large place for meeting, and
keep within the bounds of order, and there
could be no reasonable objection even if all
the artisans of the land were to assemble
together. It should be remembered, that if
Just at this time agitation is rife, there is
nothing surprising in it, seeing how it has
been fostered by parliament, the press, and
speakers of all kinds every day for the last