The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1883-02-13 00:00:00

CORRESPONDENCE.

"FALSE TRACHEAS."
To As Editor.

Dear Sir.—The correspondent " Worker " of the
Telegram is no doubt an earnest man, and I restrain
the disposition to joke kim. Yet he says "I would
not say a word against music of any kind," and then
assails inch things an minstrels." Is it because they
bla_lt their face,? But s dKW Nature with the
Ethiopians, and what harm can there be in choosing—
for the sake of disguise that may hide blushes—a
natural shade, because it see= comic to us? Re is
right about the villa's reading room, for such a hate-
ful condition as he mentions must b expected to being
a Circe; but how inn cent jesting and dressing"
without associati in with bad characters or those who
may sedum, can injure, let " Wmker" tell. He seems
to approve the War Cry; but, much as I glory in the
erasing of the rank-and-file in the cause of the Lord,
I do think that the War Cry is one of the wont pro-
ductions of the Salvation Army movement • let any
one compare its bombast with the plan etraighVorward
statement, of the Acts of the Apostles, and if he
has any sense of what is true and humble, and straight-
forward —in short of what ii" lovely and of goo
report"— I dou4t if he will ever quote the War Cry
again. The point, however, ie as to the youths who
played the Amateur Minstrels, whom " Worker "
seeks to c "demo by writing that—" drink, novel
reading, and over-dross ' injure girls and women!
Now, there were neithsr girl, nor women among the
Amateur Minstrels, and thus the principal objection
to theatricals—that they often inflame the passions—
was absent. Had there boson women in the dresses
of pages, sham statue., ..f females, in fact the tricks of
modern burlesque to stimulate evil, and help the kale
in illieit desire, then " Amateur " as well as any
other theatricals would simply be part of the gutter
that leads to the sink of the So.-4 .1 Evil. May the
Minstrebi avoid such temptation, and if there are any
signs of such abominations a• women, high or low,
exposing their figures under the sham of bang men,
I look to your correspondent " Worker " to keep an
eye on them and thunder against them, the more
terribly the higher in position they may be.
But the " Worker" seeks to make his remarks
apply to young men, by draining in the
example of • youth ruined by "gambling and card-
playing." Are we to understand that the "Amateur
Minstrels" employed part of their time in gambling?
If " Worker " means that, and has evidence of it, la
him write straightforwardly, and say so • but if not,
let him not insinuate such base charges against a party
of youngsters amusing themselves by what we in
Dorset call " manning. " Finally we hays the singular
burlesque on part of the Litany, in which "black
fume ' are brought in with everything wrong. Poor
"Worker I" 'that was the style .1 fancy which need
to paint the devil black, and which heaped ages of
agony upon the sons of Ham because they had black
skins. Had " Worker " lived in the days of the anti-
slavery struggle, he in;ght, I fear, have sided with the
.Id Comervutive side and tried to keep the spumes
dowri. Were he in the United Stoma, be might he
even now setting up his white face ever the sunburnt
once of him poorer brethren. But let me tell him and
all such 'has* U sentinient—whether he's one in
name or uot I do not mini--that mrd-playing is is
bad in a grand hotol, played by weelthy men;,
ma by a poor boy just lifted above liffiag
and " shove-'any," that more advanced gambling
is as evil in the Tory magnates at Monte Carlo as m
would-be tradeenten and artisans at home, nay more,
beams the gold of England is sucked out as rents, and
squandered on that dean of Europe. Yet, has
" Worker " aline to awaken the great ones of England
who congregate there while the Kingdom is in anxiety,
and would be in distress but for the Lord's
blessing
granted on the blue-ribbon movement and the thrift
bar people? I trust " Worker " may find • subject
woithy of his seal, and not be afraid of following the
example of John the Baptist who, calling the people
to repentance, dared to charge the mighty Herod with
hie sin. Until he does, I don't think much of his
blaming the amusements of • few young men in
"dressing up," and I should laugh at his denunciation
of black Isom but that " Worker " seriously needs to
be warned that the devil it not so dangerous in black
face, horns, and tail, as when he comes like an " angel
of light ; or—to modernise and make plain the idea—
the devil would have little chance as • black man; he
Is deadly when he induces a woman (the prettier the
worse) to OM the Pegs. with " tighte" how much
above her ankles I am ashamed to say.—Yotus holy,
Po

SMALL HOLDERS TITIMS, S.
To the Sditon

- -
Dear Sir, Your penievering correspondent
"Justice " deserves the thank+ of every reader of the
Telegram and Express for his able exposure of the
good things within reach of the poor. It is to be
remembered that some of the charities—(actually di«
tributed in outssoguence of the person who left them
having made them charges on property)—are some-
times erroneously 'apposed to be given away out of
the kindness of the person on whose property they are
made • charge, and thus the distributor gets credit
for good•heartedneea, when be is actually only dis-
charging a debt. "Justice's" letters, I hope, will be
followed by others showing whence these charities are
derived, and who have to give them away, and many
• sham may thus be stripped of borrowed plumes.
Also, when it bosoms. known that these distributions
are the right of all the poor, the latter may fairly
question on what principle they are distributed, or
whether the supposed liberal giver has not bean pick-
ing out his 011rn friends and supporters.
As to tithes, it does seem astounding that gardeners
should have to pay Cl or El 10e. per acre for tithes
only, and " Justke will do good service if be will,
when he has arrived at the end of his list, just let out
where are the gardeners so taxed for their own im-
provement,. Periwig "reverends" and "venerable."
may elsewhere be found less entitled to those epithets
than before, and very likely supposed benevolence may
be found to be aloes on the heels of bare justice. Of
course there are none in Dorset to whom
these remarks apply; but I hear from time to
time of indignation meetings in the county of Kent
againet what is called "the extraordinary tithe,"
where lands which have been improved into gardens
are burdened for the very increase of value put into
them by the class called on to pay more for expend.
log their own wisdom and work. It is comforting to
find, alongside this tax on thorough cultivation, and
With the forcible depopulation of estates in parts of
Scotland, that in England the Allotment Act aims to
restore the people to the land. Would that there
were many such charity la di, and such exponents
as " Justice" to stimulate the applicstion of such an
Act as the Allotment Act, where some of Her
lidajeety'e best subjects and our most thrifty fellow-
countrymen have been driven from the soil.
"Justice " jokes Ibbertou for the ringing of the
Curlew; but if the hell were rung there, and in Dor.
cheater too, at the time for shutting up Intoxicating'
drink shops, the work would be worth the money psi I.
Cannot the Commissioners substitute worn•out old
customs by new ones as near as reasonable to the
weaning of the old, and thus
Rine out the old, tine in the new;
Ring out the false, ring in the true."
Yours truly,
Lorna or Tan LAIHTFOLK.