The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-12-26 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

1.-CETBtMAS 18 COME AGAIN; at that
it what bosom does not expand;
what politician, how inveterate soever he in,y
be, does not wish that Reform itself were at
the bottom of the Red Sea, and Governor
Eyre singing Christmas carols in Exeter
Hall, Jamaica and New Zealand, not to
mention the Basutos at the Cape, and the
Hill Tribes of India, bedecked with "gar-
lands gay and rosemary," and feasting on
the abhorred Boar's Read, like proper
Christians? Schools break up into dissol-
ving views of parlour magic. Family
re-unions dimple over with smiles, as mother
glances proudly over improved daughter,
and father luxuriates in the sly roguery of
hopeful son. And oh! what hampers do the
trucks upon the railways groan beneath!
One wonders there can be such multitudes of
geese and turkeys in the world. And where
is the Cattle Plague ? The enlightened
butcher shows himself a true connoisseur of
flesh meat, in expatiating on his superb
house lamb, dressed like a work of art, Or his
pure Sussex Downs breed, perchance, by the
told squire himself, in comparison with which
the fat Hampshires are literally coarse and
vulgar. It may be that pig meat predomi.
nates ; but bow lovely do the dressed pigs
themselves appear, stuffed with green gar-
lands and fldwering laurustinus ! A side
or two of a young heifer is thrown in
more in bravado than ought else. And
this is John Bull's Christmas bill of
fare! What a pity to damp honest John's
enjoyment by doleful anticipations. Weather
unseasonably mild, however, as if to spite my
Lori Portarlington's predictions; Sickness tin-
usually rife; Feniapism and other symptoms
of uneasy Irish agitation; Black sympathisers
at home; John fright's Speeches; the steady
increase of the Cattle Plague; and other
symptoms of incipient blight certainly over-
cast this Christmas, as we never remember a
Christmas overcast before. Yet it is the
season of hope; and of hope too from on
high; hope sent at the darkest moment of
tile world's annual course, to cheer and bless
the future of our Faith. Why then should
we be dismayed, although Dr. Cumming,
from infallible signs, persists in fixing that
terrible date of his, 1867, for when things are
at the worst they mend—and Dr. Cumming,
though taking in hi' coals by the sack, ac-
cording to Punch's Almanac, has entered
upon his new nineteen years' lease, and.
therefore, if he expects a change, that change
must surely be the Millennium. Undoubtedly
the Millennium has still to come. We may
then

theh et
Itihoouusasannda yyesearsrs of strife'Ring inpeace,"
And so interpret the asseverations of this northern
seer that we may not fear to enter upon what-
ever the course of Providence has set before us
We are no fatalists, we do not reason thus
merely because we feel that "hail tithes" are
appriiaching and had better be endured. What
we mean and would wish to inculcate is, that, as
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, so in
His mercy it is always the case that high prices
never come upon the poor unattended by re-
munerative returns for labour. We are so apt
to overlook this as purblind economists that we
cry instinctiVely, under etith dreumitances.
"God help the poor !" But if the truth were
known, it is not always the poor of the lower
grade that are in such cs,es the worst off. The
middle-class man, on his slender fixed income,
bound down to meet an enhanced boat of living,
out of his pay, filed under a different state of
things, is too frequently the uncomplaining
victim of an abnormal condition of the market
prices of provisions such as now exists. God
forbid that we should utter one word calculated
to stay the warm and comfortable motions that
move the British heart at Christmas to send forth
loads of coals and cart-loads of Witney blankets,
baskets of under-clothing, and perhaps a regular
Christmas blow-out of beef and plum-pudding
for those who can't afford these indulgences.
But there is another question that might be
quietly asked by the heart of it, own benevo-
lence—are there none to whom our Christmas
bounty might not this time prove acceptable as
to those so visibly plunged in abject misery?
We fear that there may be thousands of families
whom our hints might indicate, but whom our
wishes and inclinations cannot approach in the
delicacy and resell% of those proud feelings,
which like the distinctions of caste in other
countries, keep one half of the world of English-
men from knowing how the other half lives.
We have, at all events, discharged our conscience
lin giving vent to these thoughts, and if we
cannot farther help all our readers to ".a MERRY
CHEISTMAB"—we assuredly wish them one with
411 our hearts.

DORCHESTER.
ON Wednesday evening straw rick was destroyed by
fire on the tam of Mr. James tovelace, at Piddle-
hinton.
THN statement of account as to the receipts land en
p nditure relative to the encampment of the Dorset Rifle
Volunteers at Lulwo,th dove in 'July last has just been
published. Froth it *e gather that the total amount of
übscrintioti+ rectived was FSD7 Also and the expendi-
ture was £697 23., leaving a balanoe of 14g. towards
next yea,.

PREFERMENT. —On the 15th inst., the Right Rev.
the Lord Bishop of Salisbury licensed the Rev. W.
Mayo, clerk, M.A., Rector of Folke, to the per.
petual curaoy of North Woottoo, Dorset, rendered
vacant by the death of the R v. William Alford, on
the nomination of Mr. George Digby Wingfield
Digby, of Sherborne Castle, the patron.
VBSTRY. —At an adjourned meeting held on the
21st instant for the parish of Holy Trinity, the
Hew. J. Fisher in the chair, for the purpose of sub.
o itting a copy of the proposed standard for county
rages received from the committee of justices ap-
pointed for preparing such basis or standard, it
wee resolved that it wag not expedient to rein any
objection to the proposed Weis.
CAUGHT AT LAST. —On Thursday, John Davis was
brought up before E. Pearce, Etq., under a warrant
°barged with trespawing in marsh of fish belonging to
James Fellow's, Esq. The offence was committed v-
. . . .
of two -

- up-
wards of years ago, and defendant, bearing that •
summons bad been issued against him, absconded. He
returned on Wednesday evening, wi.ea he was appre.
hendol under the warrant. He now pleaded guilty to
the charge, and was fined 10a. including costs.
THE channel of the river Frome as it approaches
the bridge near the White Hart Hotel has for some
time past been partially silted up, and the result
ha been t' at after heavy nine the houses abutting
on that • of the rivet have been inundated, and
the op of the mill higher -
also -