The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1877-07-10 00:00:00

Morsel Con* Expren.

117ZSDAY. JULY 10, UV.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

The Prince of Wales paid $2030 for the use of the
honse he rented daring the Ascot week. The lady to
whom the house belongs, the widow of an earl, had to
vend £lOO in providing additional asoommodation for
the Pm' ice'x guests. Still, CIAO is not a bad sum for
six day's rent.

Mr. LabnuAtere's new paper, Truth, I sommwhat
fancy, belies ite name in no unmeasared manner.
Here is • specimen from the last —When the bridge
fell at Bath, the other day, • Somerwtshire yokel, who
was one of the first picked out of the water, edified
everybody by shrieking in accents of angnish, ea he
pointed to a woman who wail still in the !dream—
" There's my wife! ru give sixpence to the man that
saves her !"
In Cheapside a plot of land having important
frontages to Oheapeide and extending through to
Queen-street. covering an area of about 4,200 feet, as
been let at E 2,300 per annum. It may be stated that
on all these sites new buildings comprieing shops and
offices are in course of erection. If we suppoee the
ground-rent of the Cheapside plot sold to pay the
buyer 4 per cent., we get about £600,000 as the price
of the land per acre. If bought to pay 3 per cent ,
and when the new houses are finished it might not be
difficult to get a purchaeer at this, the price per acre
would become about 000,000.

Mr. Cox, the Radical magistrate of Belper, has had
the courage to defend the book which is causing PO
much stir just now. He declares that " The Priest in
Absolution" hae a "high moral and spiritual tone,"
and is of great twe to the clergy in treating the diseases
of the soul, and in their ministrations to penitents.
Mr. Cox would seem to have entirely separated him-
self from the Nonconformists, with whom be used to
associate, and to have thrown himself heart and soul
into the Ritualistic party, for be calls himself "
layman who accepts the Church's doctrine in the
matter of confession and absolution," and declares his
'evilness to bear his "share of the public obloquy
which is now being raised against this ordinance of
Christ," NVho can tell hut that we may live to see
Charles Bradlaugh a Trappist monk!
Sir Stafford Northcote has ieee consented to become
the Conservative candidate for the Lord Rectorship
of Glasgow University. The Premier is the present
holder of the office. The election takes place in
November.

Ten thousand pounds a year for ten years is not had
remuneration for an official liquidator. Yet that is
the figure which Mr. Harding is said to have received
for winding up the estate of Messrs. Overend, Gurney,
and Co. Mr. Harding has been examined before the
Commission on the Stock Exchange, and when the pro.
ceedines of that body come to be made public we shall
probably learn a deal tha is interesting about the pro-
c mg of winding up the old corner house.
In the ordinary course of things Parliament ought
to be up within a month or five weeks from the pre-
sent date, but the business of the House is not, in
these days, conducted in the ordinary course of things.
The malicious opposition of the Irish faction has so far
stopped the progress of business that it is improbable
more than two really important measures—the Prisons
and the University Hills—will become law. Clone on
two-thirds the votes required in the estimates have yet
to be pawned, and it would require a sitting till Novem-
ber to bring up the work of the session to the ordinary
result. But this cannot be. The grouse is more im-
perative than the requirements of the country, and in
a few days the Government are likely to throw every-
thing overboard, except Supply, and thus force a
rising for the second or third week in August. The
chances of an autumn session, however, are not im-
probable, for even if we are not drawn into war, the
Eastern Question may involve the Cabinet in responsi-
bilities which they will not care to undertake without
consulting Parliament

_
With scarcely a single exception the information
furnished to the newspapers of the grouse prospects
for the coming season is such as to induce very
sanguine hopes.
The return of wrecks, el...unities, and collisions
from July 1, 1875, to June 30, 1876, shows that the
total number of vessels reported to the Board of
Trade as wrecked or as having met with casualties at
home and abroad was 7,998. Of these 1.148 were
total losses, 2.344 serious casusalties, and 4,506 minor
casualties. The total number of lives lost MO
2,186. In British ships only the total loss of life was
2,283.

Another batch of petitions presented to Parlia-
ment has been lamed. In favour of the Household
Franchise (Counties) Bill, 166 petitions, bearing
153,216 signatures, had been recelved ; in favour of
Women's Disabilities Removal Bill, 815 petitions,
with 267,511 signature,; against the Burial Acts
Consolidation Bill, 297 petitions were presented, with
27,951 signatures; against the opening of national
museums on Sunday, 1,069 petitions were pre-,entail
with 141.280 sipatures ; in favour of the Sale of
Intoxicating Liquors on Sunday Bill, 973 petitions
and 66,946 signatures ; against the Sale of Intoxicating
Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Bill, 224 petitions, with
103,067 names, and in favour of the bill, 783 petitions,
with 216,032 signatures.
The conductors of the Express are finding nut what
a very serious matter it is to start a daily paper.
Their paper in admirably conducted, but they say
plainly that they most have £lO.OOO more capital if
their enterprise is to be established. Earl Nelson,
the Hon. Wilbraham Egerton, 3f P., Mr. Heygate,
M.P., ("anon Gregory, anil Canon Ashwell have
formed themselves into a committee of direction to
control the Church tone" of the paper, and they
append their names to a manifesto, in which they say
that " if" Churchmen let slip the present opportunity
of having a widely circulated daily paper devoted to
the interests of the Church and maintaining Church
principles, it iM impossible that they can ever again
have it proffered for their acceptance."