The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1858-10-12 00:00:00

FOURTH
ANNUAL ADDRESS
TO OUR SUBSCRIBMS AND THE PUBLIC.

IT has again become our pleming duty to
offer a respectful testimony of appreciation
and gratitude for the liberal measure of public
support kindly sooorded to us during the three
years' existence of the Dora County &press ;
and we hold it also to be an obligation upon us
to "report progress" for the satisfaction of our
friends, and the information of all those who
may have a favourable leaning towards us.
With the present number of the Exprem, we
commence a fourth volume—enter upon the
career of a fourth year ; and, looking to the
experience of past years, we conclude that a
steady adherence to the principles which have
guided our conduct from the first, is the surest
means of extending and consolidating our
1111000 U.

In the first plum, we shall continue, as hereto-
fore, to rely upon ourselves—without recourse
to any of those foreign, adventitious, or question-
able aids, which, in the blind rush of newspaper
competition, are now often unscrupulously re-
sorted to, That is to say, we shall continue to
compile, write for, report for, and print the
whole of the &pros on our own premises—
without at any time oontleaunding to the tricky
expedient of borrowing a multiplicity of columns
from a foregone and exhitustial print anti we
shall studiously lay before our readers, aa before,
I progressive and oompreheitaive epitomy of the
news of the week, brought down to the latest
moment, The public), we have good :sawn to
know, fully appreciate the tlitfinaliee between a
reputable and effioient mode of publication like
this, end the attempt to palm upon them as a
newapaper, fresh hom the prise on the liettiriley,
the identical " stale, fiat, Ana unprofitable"
matter which hail been already given to the
public, under another title, Katie 4111 pre.
viotiely, Thal footle of doing business is, of
worse, detected as a delusion pod a snare, anti
is treated thoonlingly, !edged, such wretched
slaw as them; proclaim at onto that publicly
Suns of this kind are altogether without
merit and deatitute of piddle support, These
fuels, however, are en well understood in this
loctlity, that it would he olmost superfluous to
touch upon them here—buCtliat the Wad and
houourable distinction between ourselves and
this species of immune's, in there important
respects, is precisely the ground upon which we
have won tor ourselvee a respectable and per-
manent footing, and the good esteem and Ili.
snowing patronage of the enunty of Dorset.
Then, the independenee of principle, which
has marked, and will ever mark, our course, Is a
thing which the best of our Immediate eonteui-
porariee dare not duel with, Defect', short-
outings, abuses, and imbecility on the part of
any of those public men with whom we are more
directly concerned, are matters upon which, we
say again, they dare not comment—for two
reasons ; first, they are directly In the pay of
thaw parties (through the patronage exercised
at Quarter Sessions) and, secondly, they have
been nurtured in ayoopluoloy so long that
parasitical Awning has become habitual to them
and an incideutal expression only of indepen-
dent opinion would carry so great offence to the
generous hearts of their patrons on the Bench
—associated is they are with the magnates of
the county—that these oontemponuies would fear
more mischief to their revenues in a week than
their feeble powers could repair in a twelve-
month.

Now, happily for us, our circumstances and
disposition sr, altogether difilrent from the
oharacteristios of this picture ; and if we owe the
sumer of which we feel justly proud to one
thing more than another, It is to the principle of
independence which lawns) gives a free rein to
the expression of opinion—whether adverse or
otherwise--without regard to rank or position,
personal influence, or personal feelings.
Grateful are we to know that we have found our
reward in this honourable and approved (nurse
of action; and doubtless this resolute &tenni.