The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-04-22 00:00:00

DORSET COUNTY EXPRESS

DORCHESTER, TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1862.

THE WEYMOUTH CORPORATION.

When the Venerable Bede became bl,.nd in his
old age he preached to a heap of stones, imagining
he was in a church and thinking he had the ear
of a congregation ; and the chronicler goes on to
state that the stones were so much affected that
they cried out "Amen, Venerable Bede, Amen."
When anything very flagrant occurs, or some-
thing peculiarly and unutterably dreadful
happens, it is not unusual to hear exclamations
of surprise that the stones don't cry out. We
wonder very much that the broken and sunken
stones, miscalled "pavements," in the streets
under the jurisdiction of the Weymouth corpo-
ration, do not attract the attention and strong
indignation of the passers-by at this time. At
the Town Council meeting, held on Wednesday,
memorials were read from the inhabitants of
several localities, calling the attention of the
Board to the disgraceful state of the streets in
the immediate neighbourhood of their residences ;
but if memorials were sent from the inhabitants
of every street where a similar grievance exists,
where is there a spot throughout the whole
extent of the town whence a memorial would
not emanate I With the exception of those
belonging to the turnpike trust, the roads in
Weymouth may in truth be said to be a disgrace
to civilisation. Did Alderman Devenish speak
ironically when he congratulated the Mayor on
the present financial position of the Board of
Health I We remember the time when it was
regarded as the highest piece of good luck that
I could befal a man, to find "a potful of money."
Fortune, it was supposed, had no greater gift in
store for her best favourite than the sudden
discovery of ready-made wealth. Happy con-
tingencies of this kind rarely occur now-a-days ;
but fortunately, with a slight difference as to
details, such a slice of good fortune has fallen in
the way of the town and port of Weymouth and
Melcombe Regis. Fortunate Weymouth! It
is now in possession of "a potful of money !"
During the six months Mr. Hare has held the
office of Chief Magistrate he has saved for the
town no leas a sum than £500! We sincerely
hope it wont turn out a "mare's nest." By
what power of alchemy has he been able to obtain
so much gold ? When Lord Derby again takes
the reins of Government—it wont be this year
—we would strongly advise him to make our
modern Aladdin his Chancellor of Exchequer.
Gladstone and Disraeli, and all previous Finance
Ministers, even should they not commit suicide
through vexation at their own stupidity, would
from very shame withdraw themselves from
public life, and seek to hide their diminished
heads in some quiet nook of the earth's surface
far from the eyes of man. What a valuable
acquisition would he be to President Lincoln
just now! If be could only be induced to wave
his magic wand over the Federal States, the
millions of dollars of debt that has been incurred
by waging a fratricidal war against the Seces-
sionists, would instantly be converted into so
much superfluous cash! For ourselves, we are
perfectly content that the Mayor should receive
the congratulations of Mr. Alderman Devenish
and his brethren in the Council at his clap-trap
financial statement. Our surprise is, not that he
should have saved £sooout of the proceeds of two
tenpenny rates, but that seeing so little has been
done in the town, he should have been able, even
with the assistance of the town surveyor, to spend
so large a sum as £1,530. We are aware that the
road in East Parade has been "mended "—save
the mark l—with mud and cinders; but with the
exception of the lighting of the town, and this
little bit of engineering skill, where are we to
look for 1.50 worth of benefit the town has
derived from all that has been done
since the 9th of November last? We
have it on the highest authority that there
is such • thing as giving and yet increasing, of a
withholding that tends to poverty, and this
principle holds true in the management of roads
as in other matters. It is false economy to
allow them to wear down into deep ruts, form-
ing mud-puddles that render them in wet
weather well nigh impassible, and exhaling efflu-
via that poisons the air and generates fever.
But almost every question brought before the