The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1878-04-16 00:00:00

wziniorrni.
'lota anb Nints.

If war-like songs and tomt-drinking could hare any
sensible effect upon 'editing, we should not be far from
a war of " vengeance " upon the Despot Power of the
North. Led by an enthuaimtic chairman on Thursday I
night, the railway officials cheered to the echo any-
thing which hurled warning at aggressive Russia "By
jingo if we do ^ was sung with immense applause. "St. ,
Jingo, the new patron mint nir Old England," was
given as a toast, with the hope he'd overcome the
patron saint of Russia—" St. Bosh," and the only
amendment I beard to this sentiment was that the
patron of Ru-.la is—not "Bosh"—but "Si. Nicholas,"
the patron saint f a warmer region than Ramie, or,
as it was pointedly explained—" Old Nick."
the ingenious spoiler added, "accounts for all their
doings." C .n4dering the three days after Plevna,
when the Russians left the wounded living with the
decomposing dead,—oomidering the treaty of San
Stefano, and the treatment of Ronmsnia by
Oortachakoff, it la not to be wondered at that Eagllth-
I men feel their blood boil within them. But I dollops
the railway people will follow up their words by de•iU,
and go to drdL The head officials of Railway Com-
, ies muit give their men an opportunity at least to
joins rffie corps, for what all Englishmen who are not
I the forces need, before they ought to talk of war,
Is to render themselves efficient. Masters, let your
men go to drill, and if the railway authorities will
help as they ought, they can lend their platforms and
stations for drilling risme. But, until the great mass
of this British people join the civilian army in such
vast numbers as will entirely liberate our Army and
Navy from care for the defence of the Islands, it sounds
to me premature to hurry forward • giant war with
the despots of modern times. I shall hope to see every
railway man allowed time to join a volunteer corps,
and they'll strengthen the country more than i•y
sparing 300 army reserve men from their families and
w .th on the railways at London, to help form one
Army Corps, and that of elderly men.

Not but what the Reserve forces—these men from
Weymouth at least—are resdy, aye ready, to serve
their country and their Queen. Coaetguardsinen
whose wives tremblingly wade through the London
dailies to find out the chances of permanent peace,—
are expectant of being called into the Navy, and say
'twits what they joined for, and they are willing to go.
Women who h 'ye grown too knowing to be alarmed
by the nightly scares of the Otabe or the Evening
Standard, are yet firmly thinking of the possibility of
turning out stores of warm clothing, and worse, of lint;
and they who remember the long leaguer of the
Crimean fortress, and shudder as they recall bow near
England was being overwhelmed at Inkermann, had
not the Disposer of Events allowed Sointonoff to
blunder—they, who turned heartsick from the slaughter
of the Grand Roden to thank the French for carrying
Malakoff—they acknowledged that faith in Russia
had been overeat, and echo the words of Charles of
Roumania,—' The army may be utterly crushed; but
it shall not be disarmed while we live." Said •
Weymouth pensioner to me.—" We make no wry
mouths about the matter, I am 60 years old, and if I
am called, I'll have another try at them." And if
Russia is determined to upholl the work of San
Stefano, all Britain will be j .ined against her, and
she'll have to deal with more than the present Army,
Navy, and an army corps of 90,000 reserves.

But we must drilL There is R 11.4,1 big as eighty
millions and half-a-quarter of the world can make her.
Turkey doubtful whether she shall g" on with Parlia-
ment and free institutions, or join the side of tyranny,
Austria dazzled by a gre it bribe, Germany stale-
mated by a great danger, and Yankee-land long vexed
by her mother'. jealousy. If Britian ia to stand for
the freedom of Roumania, for the Parliament of
Turkey, for the future of Bulgaris, for the stoppage
of despotiam, at last unmasked, our thirty millions
of people must not throw on the professional forces
the whole burden ; every man who wished to leave the
heritage of freedom to the coining generation should go
to drilL
I am glad that while we have been perturbed by
the war, and trade haa sickened, yet Weymouth has
not been forgetful f the war of peace. The Wey-
mouth and Nlelcombe Regis' associations, which sent
£726 13s. 914 to church and all denominational
Societies for grepel.spreading in 1876, Mores/sled the
amount to £Bl9 Os. 9.1. in 1877. The Church mission-
ary Society had £lB2 15t. ; Church Pastoral Aid,
£45 Os. 21.; Irish Church mission £46 10s. 7d ; and
the Col nial and Continental £5B 12s. ; all those
hal increased subscription. The following decreased :
—The Jew.' Society had EEO Bs. 41. ; London City
Miasion E.,35 14s. 6d.; Army Scripture Readers £4O
194. 94. ; Seamen's Mission £44 Is. 21, ; South
American Nlission, £594.. 61 But an entirely new
one, the Zemin& !Mission, had £45 17s rid. Yet a
speaker at • Temperance meeting declared wa only
eontrbute at the rate of 21 • head to travel-spreading.
as agaimit Ati • bead for intoxicating drink, and I
believe he much understated the amount.

Some of the teetotalers thought 'twas unfortunate
that both the great guns were absent from the Church
Temperance meeting nu Friday.—Canon Harker from
having to attend Her Majesty, and Mr. Groves from
being ill. What do they want "reverends" from a
distance for? I'm not sure that I heard anything
fresh from the strange clergyman on Friday night,
and. an to the clergymanic tone he spoke in, I would
10 times rather have the common-sense unaffected
sound of Mr. Fox's voice

Admiralty prophets say Limy are sanguine of raising
the Eurydice : so they said of the Vanguard. and yet
she lies on Ocean's fl•sar. But %isn't the frigate we
miss so much aa the brave men who sailed in her; if
the Eurydice were raised and afloat, ,he miss f the
" Eurydice's" would be all the more bitter, and if it
were right to rtrophise the fable Neptune, we might
alter Pope 1111 cry—