The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-12-12 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

--
1,--WHEN THE 141YEEN resumes activiiT
it will be with a will. Already she has
announced her intention to open Parliament
in person—with, however, some modifications
of ceremonial, on which our London Corres-
pondent thinks fit to comment. Already
is it known Her Majesty will, on Janu
inhabit the State Palace of Buckingham
House. She has also assented to the nup-
tials of her third daughter, the Princess
Helena, with Prince Christian of Schle4vvig.
Holstein, which is another harbinger of
Court festivities. But a present gloom is
cast over all these prospects, by the fact that
the aged King of the Belgians has sunk at
last under dysentery. The crown lawyers in
Ireland are very successful _in obtaining ten
to twenty years' convictions in the cases
against the Fenians.

lI.—THE OCCURRENCE this year of the
Diocesan Educational gathering for arunt
at our own door, and the long and lucid
expositions delivered there by the Lord
Bishop and others, on the vital subject of the
public and general instruction of the people,
deepens in our mind the conviction that
amongst all the momentous topics destined to
occupy the Parliament now definitely con-
voked for the Ist of February, none other is
destined to occupy so prominent a place. To
Churchmen more especially the necessity
must be apparent of putting forward some
grand organisation for taking possession of
the popular mind through the avenues of
education. Roused from a long dream of
educational lethargy, during which it was
languidly believed that Sunday schools could
accomplish all that the sacred obligation to
teach the common people imposes on the
Church, the opportunity is now set before
her of aiming at something far more compre-
irensive—tomething which, in a secular as well
as in 4religious point of view, will rivet the
attachment of the most influential ot all
classes amongst us—the masses of the popu-
lation—to our holy Church—and bind them
for life to her in chains ef gratitude. But
It must be done, as the Bishop in his
elaborate address Upon the subject shows,
'in careful and well-ordered detail, with rami-
fications of supervision, and all that respon-
sible subordination which the machinery of a
Church, by law established, alone supplies.
Without invidious collision with any other
body, nay, in plain co-operation with ill
educational institutes having in view the
public good, the Churchmen of England are
called and required to combine their means
and substance, their hearts and souls in the
better development of this educational basis)
which they will find to be a true and fruitful
nursery for the growth of Church principles,
111.—Dreary November and the dull dark
days of the succeeding month bring to us
with never-failing punctuality the gatherings
of agricultural societies. At first thought,
summer would seem to be the most apprOi
priate time for the exhibitiOri or animals,
when fields are green and nature holds her
holiday. On the other hand, the sleek and
well-to-do cows and oxen and pigs that now
make their appearance are pleasingly sug-
gestive of those creature comforts withoht
ithich the festive season of CIA-lamas would
lack half its enjoyments. We have often
thought that farmers possess in these annual
gatherings greater privileges than fall to the
lot of any other class. Until lately the
manufacturer or tradesman considered himself
lucky if he had an opportunity of exhibiting
hie goods once in five or ten years. Great
. .
Exhituttons cannot, even in England, be held
' much oftener. I3ut our agricultural friends
contrive to have a "show" for their manu-
factured articles, not only once a year, but,
reckoning the large number of societies
throughout the Kingdom, as often as they
please. Nor can it be denied that the
ties thus afforded them have worked
wenderous improvements in all branches of
their profession. We sometimes attribute
many of these changes to the establishment
of Free Trade, and doubtless it has been the
indirect cause of stimulating the farmer to
much energy and invention, yet we are
inclined to think it is their frequent habit of
_ together, comparing notes, and vying
. each other for excellence, that has really
been most efficacious in bringing about the
, prosperity they now enjoy. While, however,
I we grant that much has been done, we must
disguise the fact that a great deal has
left undone, and in some of the most
rtant matters connected with agricul-
occupation there has been no improve.
at all. Of late years a great deal of the
has been bestowed on the
mine- •
well

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