The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-05-02 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

L —Tut QdEttlt drives out daily at Osborne,
The Princess Helena, attended by Lady
Churchill, usually appears on horseback. Her
Majesty sent a graceful birth-day present of a
beautiful carriage, to be drawn either by pony
or donkey, to the venerable ex-Queen Amalie,
of France, who on Wednesday last attained her
83rd year, at St. Leonards on Sea. The air of
St. Leonards appears to protract the life of this
aged Queen, who is described as enjoying extra-
ordinary good health. With exception of the
Duke and Duchess de Montpensier, who are
absent from England, she received the con-
gratulatory visits of all the members of her
faPaily, and a party of 30 sat down to an elegant
dejettner. Flags floated over St. Leopards, the
town band serenaded the venerable lady, and
during her carriage drive she received the re-
spectful salutations of many hundreds of visitors
on the Parade. It is thus that we recognise
those who confide themselves to us in misfortune.
Physicians are fast becoming persuaded that
instead of going abroad in search of health, the
sanitary resorts ot England are superior to any
In the world. The ex-Queen takes walking and
driving exercise twice daily, and occasionally
avails herself of a promenade in the delightful
subscription gardens in the rear of the Victoria
Hotel for a walk before breakfast. In fact it is
only the want of such adjuncts that prevents
some of our own local watering-places becoming
still more fashionable resorts than they are ;
but something quite equivalent might be found
at Bournemouth; and what is the enterprising
Mr. Hawkins of Weymouth about, that he has
not organised " delightful gardens" at Belfield
or somewhere else thereabout, long ago I Now
is the time to urge upon the honourable members,
if they expect re-election, to do something or
other for Weymouth. They give a few sub-
scriptions, and one of them indulges in an
occasional fit of residence. But we assure them
that unless they de something more than this,
they are not the men for us. Nothing, we
believe, is so much required to add to the
attractions of our great watering-place as what
they have at S. Leonards—" beautiful:subscrip-
tion gardens;' and if the rich and influential
representatives of Weymouth would give us,
or get us these, we should regard it as a charity
that would cover a multitude of sins. We
are glad to report the aged King of the Belgians
again better—quite restored in fact to health,
since his return home ; although, among the
sensation rumours in Paris, consequent on the
tragic fate of the. First Magistrate of the
American Republic, was included a report of
King Leopold'a death, without, however, the
!lightest foundation. The Emperor of the
French *ad alleged to ha tui been diSconcerted in
his intention of setting out for Algeria by the
assassination of President Lincoln; but the pre-
parations for his departure were not counter-
manded, and he set out on Saturday evening on
this colonial " progress."—The young heir of all
the Russians, the Czarewitoh is dead. The
death bed scene alluded to in our last, was also
attended by the youthful prince's betrothed,
the Princess Daginar, of Denmark, sister of our
Princess of Wales.

11.—THE Bomar of 1865 is the Parliamentary
sensation of the week. Having a large surplus
at his disposal the Chancellor of the Exchequer
has certainly risen to the occasion, and instead
of frittering it away in trifling details, and
finical alterations as has been too much the C&80
in previous instances, he has with one or two
bold sweeps of the pen—(perhaps we should say
of the tongue)—assigned it over to a limited
range of monied and commercial interests,
leaving the British farmer as usual pretty much
out of the question, and leaving at the same
time the whole question of the Malt-tax under
appeal to the hustings—for, the trifling concession
of charging upon weight in place of upon measure
is surely as great a mockery as the abortive
bill of last session for feeding upon malt, duty-
free I Digesting this disappointment as best we
may, the grandeur and dignity of what the
Chancellor calls his financial operations become
rather striking. Dealing with a surplus revenue
of three millions and a quarter, and holding
forth the prospective surplus of upwards of four
millions for another year • he is able to point to
a reduction of £17,646,000 on the National
Debt within the last sit years, and a growth of
One and three quarter millions annually in the
current revenue. What he proposes "to do
with it" is this. To property he concedes as we
have said the greater slice. The Income Tax
is henceforth to be only 4d. in the £ ; placing
it in a position either for being retained as a
permanent impost in time of peace, or for being
"dealt with" the more easily in case of a
demand for its removal. Now, many are divided
in opinion as to the remission of the Income
Tax in preference to the Malt duty; and Mr.
Gladstone proclaims the latter to be the death
blow of indirect taxation. In fact he insinuates
that the Anti-Malt-tax movement is nothing
but a conspiracy in favour of direct taxation.
If all the right honorable gentleman's arguments
against the remission of the Malt duty be equally
unfounded however, its advocates have nothing
to fear. In truth Mr. Gladstone never appeared
to less advantage as a casuist than in reasoning
down this popular and truly British demand.
He was contending all through with shadows of
his own creation, and beholding him fighting
with these ghosts of pretences, one looked in-
stinctively behind the scenes to see whether the
dexterous sophist had not Mr. Pepper of the
Polytechnic somewhere concealed ! His pre-
tended difficulty in being able to afford greater
reduction of the Malt duty than would afford
more than a farthing a quart to the consumer is
an absurdity which has been answered again
and again. Did the French Wine Tariff
cheapen French clarets and champagne to
no greater extent? And are the cases not
exactly parallel? The fact is that it is in the
facilities afforded to the vine grower, as to the
barley grower, that the advantages of repealing
restrictions absolutely laying an embargo on
their operations reside. Why, as regards the
cultivation of barley, it is our whole improved
system of agricultural rotations that cries out
for it—not our drinkers of beer. And how
inexact and untruthful are Mr. Gladstone's
mock statistics of beer-drinking! He asks us
to believe that every male adult Englishman
consumes a bushel and three-quarters of malt;
that we drink one barrel per head; that we are
so besotted that a man is accounted to have
always ben a temperate man, even for under-
going hospital operations who never drinks were

than eight quarts a day, and is not regarded as
intemperate until he cannot do with less than
from twelve to sixteen quarts ! This may have
been meant for a joke, but it wall uttered in
earnest, to defeat a fiscal agitation, and will go
forth as a damaging libel on the English
character. Does Mr. Gladstone know nothing
of the quantity of the Pale Ale exported to
India, Australia, and in fact all over the world,
that he imputes the entire consumption to
English male adults (for the women he says
drink very little) at home? We will not believe
it. The whole statements relating to the Malt
duty indulged in by the Right Honourable
gentleman, are indeed characterised by a disin-
genuousness unworthy of him. But he admin-
isters a soothing syrup to our teetotal propensities
by taking sixpence off the pound of tea! Well
eertainly the domestic circle will thank him for
that ; and if he must and will foster and pro-
mote foreign produce in preference to domestic,
there is nothing off which the impost could have
come with more ecleit than tea. But we lament
to say that tea itself is a form of female dissi-
pation into which sanitary and medical reformers
have inquired and found it, particularly in
certain remote villages, scarcely less to be con-
demned than strong drink. However, we mean
to raise no objection to the remission of the tea
duties, although we perceive that the holders of
stocks consider it ruinously precipitate, and
are already up in arms petitioning against
it. The only other thing Mr. Gladstone
had got to do after making these
large remissions was to reduce the
duty on Fire Insurances; and to him this which
the House and the country expected to prove
an embarrassment, was but a ilea bite. Not
only is it done; but the stamp duty on small
policies being also removed, the great Insurance
business of a country covered with substantial
property, and abounding in the risks arising
from activity and enterprise will go steadily
forward.

111.—THE AssassmatioN of President Lincoln
is one of the foulest stains upon the page of
human history. The audacity of the act does
not in the least redeem its character; for it was
as ill-timed as it possibly could be, and as out-
rageous as if it were the deed of a maniac.
That it originated, however, in a concerted plot,
there needs nothing more to prove than the
simultaneous attempt upon the family of Mr.
Seward, and the well arranged escape of the
assassins. But still humanity must deprecate
all idea of the North in its hour of baulked and
thwarted triumph 'visiting the perpetration of
this outrage on the prostrate South. The some-
what bombastic proclamation of Jefferson Davis
is indeed an ill-omened complication at such
a crisis ; for, 'although it breathes but a
spirit of unyielding resistance, it invokes
and instigates a bitterness of retaliation for
an act with which, being antecedent, it
could possibly have no relation. The effect
every other where will on the other hand be
conciliatory, since the natural repugnance enter-
tained towards an act of brutal murder, will
furnish all the nations of the world with a ready
opportunity of declaring their real sentiments
of brotherhood towards the American people.
Resounding from shore to shore the cry of
indignation, and the wail of sympathy will
reach and indicate to the United States that the
feelings entertained towards them are less hostile
than they have been taught and trained to sup-
pose. Our own Houses of Parliament will be
amongst the first to utter their cry of eitecration
at this atrocity; and there is not a public com-
munity in the land but either has or will r6-echo
the indignant outburst. Diplomatically America
will receive more assurances of condolence than
could ever have reached her from any less
melancholy cause. The only difficulty that we
can see in this calamity being overruled for good
relates to the manner in which the new President
Andrew Johnston may comport himself. Doubt•
less there was much exaggeration in the penny-
a-line sketches of his character given on occasion
of his taking the oaths as Vice-President. And
we have always seen extreme men pulled up as
with a curb on being elevated to responsible
positions. It may be so with Andrew Johnston.
He has taken " the pledge" it is alleged for four
years ; and we cannot help thinking that faulty
as the electoral system of America may be, a
Vioroughly unworthy man could never have
reached the Vice-President's chair, with the
prospect (now so fatally realised) that accident
might any day make him President of the
United States.
IV.—THE CONFESSION of Constance Kent is
as great a mystery as the Road Murder itself.
Before even hazarding a conjecture on such a
subject, we wait the farther disclosures and
details which will soon test the nature of that
confession. In the meantime all we can do is
to keep our readers fully up to the mark in re-
gard to whatever transpires, and this is what we
shall do,