The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-05-09 00:00:00

OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

I daresay members of Parliament as a body, are
considerably annoyed with Mr. Baines for intro.
clueing his Borough Franchise Bill onoe more at the
present moment. It is perfectly well understood by
all men of any political information that there II
not a shadow of • chance of such a Bill passing on
the motion of a private member; but the debate on
the motion for the second reading will at least pro-
voke expressions of opinion from the leaders of the
Liberal party, which may be used to their detriment
at the coming election; while those reforming
constituencies who are anxious to share their
privileges with a new class of electors will be
scanning the division-list (if there should be one),
and calling their representatives to account. Speak.
ing as a mere looker.on, and without political bias,
I should think most members of Parliament indivi•
dually opposed to the passing of snob a measure—
first, because it would alter the character of their
constitutencies, and probably make severer testa
required in the candidate; secondly, because the
present voters in most minor corustituencies would
prefer that their member should support their pre-
sent own exclusive privileges.

Mr. Gladstone has had the good sense to best •
retreat on the tdvance of an important skirmishing
party. His proposals with regard to tea may have
been ever so acceptable to the general public, but
they were very unfair to the grocers. Many of them
had laid in very large stocks of tea, and the sudden
reduction of ad. in the pound on the value of their
tea would have well•nigh ruined many of them. It
cannot of course be expected that a Chancellor of
the Exchequer should either let his plans ooze out a
long time before he declares them, or that be should
study one particular class of the community in pre-
ference to the whole; but there was no occasion for
him to bring his reduced duty on tea iato immediate
operation to the great injury of one branch of trade
and the benefit of none. Lie has, therefore, acted
very wisely in deferring the action of the reduced
duty till the let of Jane. In doing this he at once
conquers the only obstacle to his Budget tight was at
all likely to be serious.
The result of the lengthy inquiry into the Edmunds'
affair will surprise no one who has paid attention to
the complicated facts involved in it. The Lord
Chancellor does not indeed escape soot.free ; he it
mildly censured, and the probability is that he will
not resign, as was reported. Lord Brougham it is
cheering to see, is quite exonerated, although hit
brother is censured. The chief weight of the oom-
mittee's vengeance falls, naturally enough, on Mr.
Edmunds, and it is scarcely likely that the matter
will be allowed to rest here.

The examination of the witnesses, &a, in referenoe
to the murder which it is alleged was committed by
Miss Constance Kent, has been read with great
avidity. The conclusions arrived at are pretty
uniform, as far as my inquiries have extended, but the
whole ease will undergo ample investigation. Mean-
while the evidence of Miss Catherine Green, the
Lady Superior of St. Mary's Hospital, Brighton, is
much commented upon, especially in reference to the
examination and cross-examination by the Chairman
and the Clerk of the Court. The persistent question
in reference to the exact words and surrounding
details of a conversation which took place some 20
months before, between the Lady Superior and Miss
Kent, will strike every one as remarkable, and many
think that such questions were quite out of place,
especially as they came from a mere Magistrates'
Clerk. The attitude assumed also by the Rev. Mr.
Wagner is much talked of. This gentleman, you will
observe, has stated that he declines "answer-
ing
any question whatever, which may have any
tendency to criminate Miss Kent, or to divulge
anything which has been communicated to him under
the seal of secrecy or confession.'" It is remark-
able, however, that in many such cases as this the
" engineer is hoist with his own petard ;" that the
soldier falls on his own sword. We all know, with-
out entering on the advisability of such a course, that
dreadful secrets are wormed out of the penitent in
the confessional, simply by skilful questioning, and,
with this thought, let any one read the examination
of Miss Green and Mr. Wagner, and see how far
they have succumbed to the very machinery of the
confessional. On the whole, I cannot but think
that in this country we want some more competent
tribunal of " first instance," as the French call it,
than we have. I cannot understand this—" Mr.
Inspector Williamson who has charge of the ease,
and Mr. Inspector Whioher who had charge of the
matter in the first inquiry." What "case?" What
"matter ?" What can these reporters mean? One
would think that these policemen were on a level
with the Attorney and Solicitor-General.
Thanks to Mr. Bazalgette and Mr. Thwaites the
Thames is becoming much better than formerly.
Had it not been f w the main-drainage scheme, even
as far as it has yet extended, the Thames, now the
hot weather has set in, would become unbearable.
But I can vouch for its being much improved from
what it was. A correspondent of a daily paper
before me can, however, do more than this. Ho
gleefully writes : "Yesterday a small roach was
taken out by the ticket collector at St. Paul's Pier,
and this morning a very fine one was seen
sporting about at the foot of the steps, &trey
side; so that we may expect to see the anglers
as in the olden times. "Softly, my friend," as John
Bunyan would have said, "whither away ?"
Methinks this is rather an hasty conclusion. No
more will any modern 'utak Walton or Thomas
Cotton walk across the meadows to fish where now
there are coal barges and steamboat piers; no more
will any devotee of the gentle art handle his frog
gently, and impale him tenderly as though he loved
him, and then take pike at Battersea Beach. Never
again, I expect, will the Thames deserve Sir John
Denham's epithets, "though deep, yet clear;
though gentle, yet not dull ;" but if we see the
Thames a clear, wholesome river that will be some-
thing for a few millions.

Perhaps no portrait at the photographic shops sells
more rapidly just now (certainly none attracts more
attention) than that of Wilkes Booth, the assassin of
President Lincoln. The two portraits, indeed, are
usually placed side by side. Booth's countenance is
prepossessing. I can see in it no signs of malice or
crime, but there are undoubtedly marks of firmness
and decision, and the possessor of such a forehead
and countenance would be generally regarded as a
man of talent.

The proprietors of theatres on the one hand, and
of Milk, halls on the other, still continue in
antagonism, which is occasionally laughable, as to
what is and what is not a theatrical entertainment,
and the strong arm of the law is brought in now and
then to trace the frontier line. The 6th and 7th
Vic., cap. something or other, is an Act which,
among other objects, seeks " toprevent indecent and
irreverent exhibitions by requiring all such enter-
tainments to be sanctioned by the Lord Chamber-
lain's license or by justices." A case has come
before the Court of Common Pleas which, in re-
ference to the "Act of Parliament in that case made
and provided," is sufficiently noteworthy. There
was at Birmingham a concert-hall, with galleries
round three bides, and the fourth side presented the
appearance of a regular theatre—proscenium, curtain,
footlights, &c. There was a play—stop, that is
begging the whole question—well, there was a repre-
sentation of a storm and a shipwreck; a man
swimming on the briny,es Mr. Dick Swiveller would
call it; a prince came on the stage; there was "a
set drama, with a regular plot of love, courtship, and
matrimony." But there was a great peculiarity
about the drama, "with the exception of two
persons, the dialogue between whom was wholly
subordinate, none of the characters were at any time
bodily upon the stage ;" in fact it was • ghostly
drama. The characters came like shadows and so
departed; they were mere reflections from a mirror
in the Pepper and Dirck's style. The whole case turned
upon the point whether this was or was not a drama
or play within the meaning of the Act; and unfortu-
nately for the proprietor of the music hall it was
decided that it was. But that which led to this
decision seems to have been chiefly the words--the
dialogue. Now this being the case, I should not be
at all surprised if some enterprising music hall pro-
prietor do not manage to have the worda spoken OFF
the stage (u is done every night by the way at the
Marionnettea in Paris). A very clever ghastly
entertainment could be managed in this way; and it
would not be one whit more difficult than a
clever feat once performed by Charles Mathews.
Charles Lamb had to return thanks for his health.
He was very nervous, and was prevailed upon by the
former to get upend merely look as if he were speak-
ing. Mathews ventriloquially did the speech, and
poor Charles Lamb merely "looked the thanks he
could mot speak." The music hall proprietors might
do something in the same way.

FINIS minor trades have struck work in Paris.
Two bodies of operatives are striking at Huddersfield
for shortening the hours of labour. The painters ere
one of them, the masons the other.
IN the Divorce Court, on Tuesday, the dearees nisi
in the Chetwyn and Codrington caeca were made
absolute.

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