The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-05-22 00:00:00

NOTES OF THB WEEK.

I.—Tai IMPENDING ATTITUDE of War
amongst the German Powers bas served to
derange many a prospect of the tourist, both
on the Continent and at borne. Among, t
other things we learn that the Queen has
relinquished her proposed trip to Balmoral,
tired for last Friday, and intends to remain
for the present in the vicinity of the metro-
polis at Cliveden, the sea, of the Duchess
Dowager of sutherland, till after her WI sjesty's
birthday (2lth inst.), and Ascot races. But
there may be no war. France has great faith
in a Conference, and has not only proposed
one to adjust all the three questions of
Venetia, schleswig-Holstein, and German
Federal Reform, but Baron Budberg, Earl
Cowley, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys are re-
puted to have already settled betwixt them
the basis of its programme at Paris. We
can easily understand this. If France with
relentless aim pursues the sole object of en-
settling the treaties of 1815, a Conference of
European powers naturally furnishes her
best chance ot accomplialiing by deep diplo-
inacy that for which she might vainly fight
hard for ever. Yet France has in this in-
s.ance declared she would join the Congress
with perfect disinterestedness, without raising
atIV question of a nature to complimte the
difficulties of European arbitration This
bring all that has ever kept the rest of Europe
aloof from her and her Conferences, if France
should loyally observe this vow, and the'eby
assist in prevekting war, without any sly
underhand aim at giving her frontier a hitch
forwards to the Mime, Europe at large would
be really and truly thankful, and might abso-
lutely begin to recognise "the Empire" as a
moral benefit to ibe world. At all events
'I. Drouyn de Lhuys has been commissioned
to prepare his dispatch and forward it to the
courts of Berlirt, Vienna, and Florence, with
a view to the preservation of peace by
diplomacy. Prussia is expected to accede to
the proposed arrangement; but the. course
that Austria may take is uncertain—the
difference being just this, that in wee of the
failure of a peace Congress and its arbjtration,
the next step that France would adopt would
be to station two corps of observation, One
upon the Southern frontier, and the other
on the Rhine, and whatever might be the
effect of the former, the latter is the Lot
thing Prussia would care to see.
IL—Tax BOMBARDMENT of a great city
is always a calamity of the utmost gravity.
If it occur where great cities are rare, its
importance is indefinitely increased, and if it
should appear that it has been an act of
unnecessary. and therefore of wanton malice,
it assumes the character of a stupendous
crime and tarnishes for centuries, If not for
ever, the name of the nation responsible for
the atrocity. When we learned that the
f-panish admiral. Mend.s Nunes, had born-
basied the city of Valparaiso, we shared the
feeling of indignation, which ran like an
electric shotk round the civilised world. It
was difficult to believe the truth of the
report, and when doubt was no longer
possible, words were hard to find which could
adequately express the detestation whieb such
an act called forth. We have now the whole
circumstances of the case before us, and we
have not often had to record a transaction
so enti,elv discreditable to all parties con.
earned. To the (lithium falls the smallest
Wt at the blame, Omsk Ow =mut by