The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-07-04 00:00:00

Vaud &until Expoo.

TUIBDAY, JULY 4. IStl

NOTES OF THE WEEK

Dr. D. G. F. Macdonal writes :—I be to
invoke the powerful aid of the Press to dispel
the silly delusion that • person bitten by a clog
will die of hydrophobia should the animal go mad
afterwards. Many persons of nervous temper-
ament have actually died of this fear alone, while
a lamentable amount of ignorance on the subject '
I. still allowed to grow up. When a dog bites,
he is instantly suspected of madness, although
not one in & thousand of the offenders is rabid;
consequently, numbers of our canine friends are ,
cruelly sacrificed in mere panic. Moreover,
hundreds of our superstitious fellow-creatures,
once bitten live in horrid suspense, believing
that they must die of the dreadful malady. Now,
the bite of a sound dog is no more fatal than the
scratch of • child. Furthermore, • more com-
petent authority states that, even when rabid
dogs bite, only one case out of 29 is followed by
hydrophobia.
There is litttle hope of the continuance of
peace. Each succeeding day brings news of the
intention of Servia to provoke hostilities, though
with what object does not seem very clear.
Absolute independence and the headship of a
Slave State is no doubt the chief ambition of
most of her people. Notwithstanding the pro-
fessions of Russia and Austria that they will do
all they can in the interest of peace, it is greatly
doubted whether war can be prevented. For
internal reasons alone the Servian Government
cannot abandon the position they have under-
taken, and when the sword ix once drawn, the
chief concern of the Great Powers will be to
keep the combatanta in a ring fence. If this be
done it is by no means improbable that the Turk
will prove the victor, and, strange as it may
seem, this will only complicate events. Sup-
posing the Turk successful, can we expect Russia
to stand by and see her purtilii defeated 1 If
Russia ventures into the field is it likely that
our own Government or the other treaty Powers
will stand still 1 In regard to British policy,
all that we know is that the Ministry will not
interfere so long as the Turk's difficulties are
internal, but Lord Derby's declaration on that
point implies that we shall interfere immediately
any other power brings armed pressure to bear
upon the Porte. The dangers therefore, lies in
the attitude of Semis provoking such a contin-
gency. The story goes that if Mr. Disraeli
had his own way his Turkish policy would be
more decisive than that which we have indicated.
He would assist the Turk to suppress his inter-
nal peace-breakers, and it is stated in well-
informed quarters that he is only restrained
from this by the more cautious policy of Lord
Derby and two or three others of his colleagues.
That there is a division in the Cabinet is •
matter of common gossip, and it is well for the
peace of the country that the will of the Premier
is not in the ascendent.

Last year, says a Landon correspondent, it
will be remembered that Mr. Sampson Lloyd
called the attention of Mr. Hardy to the fact
that four Life Guardsmen in uniform had carried
the canopy over Cardinal Manning as he
carried the host at a Roman Catholic pro-
cession in Bayswater. The efforts of the
member for Plymouth to put down what is very
like a public scandal have been unavailing. The
same scene was repeated at the same place a few
days ago, and on this occasion there was a
development of the ceremonial, for a fifth Life
Guardsman bore the minor canopy which veils
the monstrance in its passage to and from the
altar. At this ceremony the Cardinal adminis-
tered the "Benediction of the most Blessed
Sacrament" thrice, once at each of two
temporary altars, and once at the high altar in
the chapel of St. Charles's College.

It seems to be now thought that the fractures
of the Direct United States cable were not inten-
tional. It is supposed that the accidents were
caused by fishing vessels, whose anchors when
let go, dragged and caught the cable, and when
raised broke it. There is, however, this sus-
picious circumstance about the accidents—that
some persons were operating on the Stock
Exchange in cable shares before the breakage
was generally known. However, the Anglo-
American cables have been broken lately, and
it has taken all their resources in the way of
telegraph ships and engineers to do the repairs.
At the present time, Atlantic telegraphy is
employing three repairing ships; but as the
companies are rivals it sometimes happens that
one ship is doing nothing at the same time that
the other company has more work to do than it
can well accomplish.
No more instructive chapter of social history
has been written for a long time than the narrative
which a correspondent of the Doily News gives
of the state of the Cleveland iron district.
Middlesbrough, the capital of that part, has
grown from a solitary house to a town of 50,000
persons within the memory of men of middle life.
It has owed its prosperity to the discoveries of
iron ore. But it is now in imminent danger of
falling into decay as rapidly as it rose. Whole
streets of houses belonging to the workingclaasee
are deserted, for the staple industry has ceased.
Iron gave birth to Middlesbrough; without iron
Middlesbrough cannot live. It has lostlits support
because it produces mainly iron rails, and these
had been going out of favour for some time, in
consequence of the introduction of steel rails,
when the discredit into which foreign countries
fell, and the cessation of railway works to which
that discredit gave rise, arose and inflicted a
staggering blow upon the trade of the place.
Middlesbrough might, perhaps, have endured
this but for the action taken by the men. Their
conduct seems to have been as bad as bad can be.
So long as wages were on the ascending scale,
they were willing to accept the decisions of the
Board of Arbitration. But when wages began
to fall the men resisted the reductions, though
made with the approval of their own delegates.
In one case a large concern was stopped for
several days because nine boys demanded more
wages, and the whole of the men stood by them,
though the Board of Arbitration had decided
against them. In another case the workmen
refused to complete an order because it would
not occupy the whole week and they were told
that there were no other orders after that one.
What wonder is it that masters are closing their
works on all hands 1 They say, "We have to
provide the capital and the brains; money to
keep the business going, energy to get employ-
ment for it, with this result—the workmen
practically decide whether the business shall
go or not." In fact, the workmen are
the reel masters, and, as one of the
nominal masters said, having spent 15 years in
continual conflict, in which he had always been.
worsted, he left the manufacture of iron to those
who were more devoted to philanthropy in com-
mercial matters than be was. No wonder that
one of the chief industries of England is smitten
with a paralysis from which it seems unlikely
to recover.

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