The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-03-07 00:00:00

Vorset Countti fxpreog.

TUESDAY, MARCH 7, NAL

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

Among the many subjects that at present
deservedly demand public attention we fully
admit there is scarce one of greater importance
than public drinking. Rightly or wrongly, platfonn
orators ascribe every evil under the sun to the
Brewer's tap. No murder is ever committed
but beer has frenzied the murderer's hand; no
forgery is penned, but beer has incited the too-
imitative genuis ; and the nagging woman who
has deliberately provoked her "master" into
getting her a black eye is the meek and suffering
victim of the mis-use of malt. This is all very
well in its way, and no doubt affords a con-
venient peg upon which to hang many a teetotal
moral, but that the disciples of Sir Wilfred
Lawson—who, by the way, once took refuge
under Parliamentary etiquette to avoid replying
to the question did he drink champagne—carry
things in extremities, there is but one opinion.
With every desire to aid in a work which has
for its object the eradication of what is called
a national disgrace we willingly report the
meetings of the society for closing public-houses
on the Sunday; but, at the same time we feel
bound to raise a protest against the time,
and
uncharitable villification of a certain class of
tradesmen but too often indulged in, and the
unreasonable length to which people will some-
times push their crotchets. A more temperate
or common-sense speech could hardly have been
made than by the Chairman at a recently-held '
meeting in Dorchester. The rev, gentleman
who presided expressed his belief—if our
reporter is right—that if the working man had
a glass of beer with his dinner it would do him
good. The most Puritanical can hardly object
to it. It is one that a man, not only professedly
temperate in his use of alcohol, but absolutely
temperate in self-opinion is bound to accept.
That the moderate man should be debarred his
rightly earned indulgences because the im-
moderate man is prone to make a beast of him-
self is about as logical as Joseph Arch's remedy
which we once heard the agitatorgive before a Com-
mittee of the House for poaching—abolish game
he said, and poaching will disappear. It raised
• laugh; but where is the difference between
that and the teetotallers argument—do away
with beer and there will be no more drunken-
ness I The one is as philosophical as the other.
To refer, however, more especially to the Sun-
day drinking question, we would ask the pro-
moters of the scheme what they expect to gain
from the shutting up of the houses. No argu-
ment was brought forward at all convincing as
to the efficacy of the movement. Will not, we
would urge, rather the result be, instead of men
being "turned out" at closing hours and then
going for a walk, the formation of petty social
clubs, where small-beer and vulgar conversation
will form the entertainment for the whole of the
afternoon. Again, how can these, we believe,
conscientous gentlemen ask that the working
man of Dorchester shall be deprived of his
humble 'arf-pint and "docker" for a short half-
hour on Sunday, when at a neighbouring water-
ing place he has presented to his view the swells
at their club doing their claret and Henry
Clays. It appears to us not an attempt to get
in the thin edge of the wedge but a reversal of
the experiment. Let these gentlemen who
stump the country first attack the aristocratic
establishments and then they may with greater
confidence turn their attention to accommoda-
tion houses for those who have neither clubs nor
Iprivate cellars.

There are in London several brotherhoods,
sisterhoods, and other mysterious organisations
connected with the Ritualistic party, which
should be searchingly inquired into. It has
been stated, and not contradicted, for example,
that the Bishop of London received into a
sisterhood at Kilburn, Lady Evelyn Moreton,
the youngest daughter of the late Earl Ducio,
and that by her ladyship's accession to this
sisterhood, her fortune of £lO,OOO accrued to
the society. " I toll the tale as it is told to
me," but surely inquiries should be made to
ascertain whether it is true or not.

The opponents of a Republican form of
government commonly assert that in America
under a Republic thero is far more official cor-
ruption than in Great Britain under a Monarchy,
and certainly recent revelations tend to prove
that this is so. The House of Representatives
at Washington on Friday adopted resolutions of
impeachment against Mr. Be'knees, who had
just before this resigned his post as Secretary
for War. It has been proved that during six
years this wcrldly-wise official received no less
than 25,000 dollars for the appointment of •
Mr. Marsh to a military leadership, whatever
that may be, at Fort Sill. A pretty state of
things this ! We have at home no little jobbery
and favouritism, but we have no such corrup-
tion as this, or anything approaching to it.

Don Carlos, in his well-merited adversity,
wisely chooses England, the home of the exile
and the refugee, for his residence. He comes
here, it is said, "on urgent private affiairs"—
to pay his debts. So far this is honourable to
him; but politically and as a pretender to the
throne of Spain, he can have but few sympa-
thisers in this country. Considering how hollow
are his claims, how weak have been his efforts to
assert them, and how complete is his collapse,
it seems not only strange but lamentable that
he should now declare that he merely suspends
the struggle and reserves the future to himself.
But he has no command over the future, and
his wisest course will be to live in seclusion and
in peace. And the less he says about the
immediate past the better. During his four
years' struggle he has never displayed either
good generalship or personal bravery. The
utter rout of his miserable army and his flight
to England, are the best items of news we have
had from Spain for a long time. It is to be
hoped that this long-distracted country may
now enjoy peaceful progress and prosperity.

Sir Charles Dilke has to complain of the too seen-
rate reporting of the gallery men in the House of
Commons. In his clever speech on "unreformed cor-
porations " the member for Chelsea made a good bit
of fun by his references to that of Corfe Castle, stating
that Mr. Johnson, the Mayor, has the distribution of
the charities, that the lord of the manor is an inoffen-
sive clergyman, and that the race of barons is quite
extinct. A gentleman who has the honour and privi-
lege of signing himself "A Baron of Corfe Castle "
observes that the race is not quite extinct, that Mr.
Johnson is not the mayor, but the cx-Mayor, and that
whoever he may be, lie has not the distribution of the
charities, this being done by a body of trustees
approved of by the Charity Commissioners; and that
the lord of the manor is" a young squire of whom it
' is hoped that he will prove thoroughly worthy of his
honourable titles." With these trifling exceptions,
Sir Charles Dilke's " facts " about Code Castle are
correct. Perhaps, upon fuller enquiry, it may be
found that while all the picturesqueness of the old
corporations remains there is not a tithe ol the cor-
ruption which, in the member for Chelsea's opinion,
should doom these remnants of by-gone times to
annihilation.