The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-04-08 00:00:00

HUNTING APPOINTMENTS.

The East Dorset Hounds—Saturday, Tollard Green
—at 11.30.
The B. V. Foxhounds—Tuesday, (this day),
Puddymors ; Friday, Bailey Ridge Gate—at 11.
Mr. Radelyffe's Hounds—Tuesday, (this day),
Piddlehinton Cross Roads—at 10.45.
The West Somerset Hounds—Tuesday, (this day),
Chargott Lodge; Saturday, Dunster Kennel—at
11.

MI communications in ration to whatever de-
partment of the Paper are to be addressed to
the Editor of the Dorset County Exprens and
Agricultural Gazette, at the Office, Church
Street, Dorchester.

THE

DORSET COUNTY EXPRESS

DORCHESTER, TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1862.

THE DUCHY OF CORNWALL AND THE
FAIR FIELD.

Let us put in a plea for a very valuable
though very ia-used body of men—the farmers
and butchers attending the Dorchester market.
Courage, we all know, is a very valuable quality,
and happily it is very largely possessed by the
Anglo-Saxon race, It is a quality to man, like
strength, for use in the business of life. It is
not only soldiers who require courage. You can
hardly name a peaceful pursuit connected with
out-door occupation that does not require it. A
timid man will not make a good driver, a good
rower, or a good cricketer; we say nothiug of
volunteers, they are soldiers. To enumerate,
indeed, its occasions in civil life, in which courage
is requisite, would fill a column. Unquestion-
ably there are plenty of uses for it, and by no
means in a small degree by a person attending
the Dorchester stock markets and cattle sales in
wet weather. As everybody knows, the Fair
Field was formerly a Roman fosse, or ditch; it
lies in a hollow, is consequently wet and dirty in
the extreme, and the most ill-adapted place for
the purpose of a market that could possibly be
found in the immediate vicinity of a town in the
kingdom. But courage alone is not here suffi-
cient. To wade through the -mud among the
sheep pens, after a few hours' rain, requires a
pair of boots and a dress such as a navvy would
wear. We fancied that we ourselves possessed a
considerable amount of pluck when we per-
formed the journey on foot, steeple-chase fashion,
through the fields the other day from Wey-
mouth to the Waddon race-course; but we con-
fess that on the following day we shied at the
mud in the Fair Field, which lay between us and
a pen of sheep we were endeavouring to reach.
This is not as it should be; but unfortunately,
it is easier to complain of a grievance than to
get the grievance remedied. The town is pecu-
liarly situated. Were the laud surrounding it
the property of private individuals, a portion for
the purpose of a market might be purchased or
obtained on lease for a long term of years; but,
unfortunately, it belongs to the Duchy of
Cornwall, except that portion lying on the
north side, and used as water meadows. We
say "unfortunately" in a qualified sense, not
that we have aught against anyone connected
with the Duchy individually, but because we
know of not one single circumstance in conjuno-
tion with the management of the property
calculated to win the esteem of the inhabitants
of Dorchester. It would not be difficult to
point to scores of towns in England where the
owners of private property have not only given
sites of land for the benefit of the inhabitants,
but have also built halls and institutions, and
exerted themselves in various ways to promote
the benefit of the town in which their property
was situated. Bat what, we may ask, has the
Duchy of Cornwall ever done for the benefi of
Dorchester? Not only has it never done
nothing, but it has ever been the stumbling
block in the way of progress. Many persons
will remember that when Mr. Coombs was Mayor,
he used every exertion to get the Royal Agri-
• cultural Society to hold a meeting here. He
spent a considerable sum of money and devoted
a large portion of his time to attain his object.
But how was he met by the Duchy of Cornwall?
Was he met in the way any private gentleman
having a large interest in the district would have
met himl Quite the contrary. It threw every
obstacle in his way. That the Exhibition would
have been of great benefit, not only to the town
but to the surrounding district, there can be no
doubt, but the Dueby wee the ebMf sines to ha

not being held here. Another of our Aldermen
at the time he was Mayor of Dorchester offered
liberal terms for the purchase of Beggar's Knap—
the three-cornered piece of land situated between
the two railway stations—for the purpose of
presenting it to the town for a site for a market.
One would have supposed that had there been
no disposition to give the land under such
circumstances, the gentleman making the offer
would have been met half-way. But the Duchy
would do nothing of the kind. True to its ante-
cedents, which had earned for it the cognomen
of " The Voracious Duchy," it would
neither give nor sell. Happily that was
"a long time ago." The earth has
made many revolutions round the sun since
then, and the face of nature has been several
times renewed. The aspect of things, and the
opinions of men, have likewise undergone a
change, and the Duchy of Cornwall has been
invigorated with new blood. We are always
unwilling to allude to old grievances, or to refer
to the past unless we can do so with pleasureable
emotions. May we not then suggest that the
coming of age of Albert Edward, Prince of
Wales, will be an excellent opportunity to wipe
out the stain at present existing in the history of
the Duchy by the granting of a suitable piece of
land so greatly to be desired for the county town
of Dorset. We know of no gift that could be
more gracefully made, or that the inhabitants
generally would receive with greater gratitude.