The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1875-09-07 00:00:00

Doug &multi Exinegg.

TUESDAY. szprzisza 7. IRE
_
NOTES OF THE WEEK.

Active preparations are being made for the
approaching visit of the Prince of Wales to India.
TheSerapiswill,itia expected,be out of the hands
of the dockyard authorities on the 23rd inst.,
and will be taken into the harbour on the follow-
ing day. She will then proceed to Spithead.
After leaving that place Malta will be the next
calling place. There the Seraphs will remain
several days tor coaling purposes. From Malta
she will go to Venice, where on the 15th October
the Prince of Wales and those who accompany
him will embark.
Colonel Wilson, member for West Suffolk,
died on Saturday. In June of this year, or less
than three months ago, he contested the con-
stituency against Mr. Wilson, a Liberal, but the
contest was less between rival politicans than
between landlord and tenant representatives of
the different views hold upon the Agricultural
Holdings Bill of last session. The result was an
emphatic approval of the Government measure,
Colonel Wilson obtaining a majority of 1,729
over his opponent, whereas the Conservative
majority in 1868 was only 657. After this, it is
thought the Liberals will hardly contcat the seat again
so soon.

than

On Sunday died Mr. Fie Men, the Conservative
M.P. for Blackburn. Ile was a popular man in the
county, and moderate in politics. The constituency
returns two members, and at the February election of
1874 Mr. Fit+len recorded 5,532 votes, and his
Liberal colleague, Mr. W. E. Briggs, 5,328. It is
not unlikely, therefore, that there will ensue a sharp
contest for the single seat.
The election of a vicar of Clerkenwell has
shown that parochial choice is by no means •
happy resort from the evils of private patronage.
For weeks past that large and populous parish,
chiefly consisting of small tradesmen and work-
ing people, has beets appealed to by placards,
speeches, and electioneering squibs, similar to
those during a parliamentary election in the old
days of bribery, corruption, intimidation, and
open voting; and for three days the district was
given over to the clap-trap and trickery of elec-
tion partisans, with increased business at the
II public-houses, and the excitement of a fiercely-
waged contest. It is monstrous that all this
excitement and commotion should attend
the appointment of a minister of religion.
Even extra numbers of police were em-
ployed throughout the contest, and they
were required. A curious anomaly of the
election was the voting of ratepayers, many
of whom are Dissenters, but many more most
probably of no religion at all.
Another maritime collision in the English
seas, and once more the fault—for there must
be a fault somewhere—seems duo to the blunder-
ing on the part of our naval officers. The facts
of this late accident appear very simple. A
naval squadron, steaming ahead over the placid
waters of St. George's Channel, runs into a fog
bank. By a not uncommon chance, their path
is crossed by a merchant ship under sail. In
t_r:Liff
to avoid this obstacle the ironclad Van-
is suddenly brought athwart the bows of
' LT:inter ship, the Iron Duke, and in the course
of an hour the former goes to the bottom.
1 Several points suggest themselves for inquiry.
j At what speed was the squadron proceeding
1 when the collision took place 1 What are the
Admiralty regulations for steamships during
1 foggy weather What distances separated the
several vessels belonging to the squadron 1 Did
the commander of the Vanguard take every
means of warning ships in company that he had
suddenly changed his course I How far off was
the Iron Duke when her look-out reported the
Vanguard in sight 1 Answers to these queries
may perhaps help to explain why, on a calm
autumnal afternoon, with no cause of danger
but a thick fog, one of the finest ships in the
navy was run down, with a realised loss to the
nation of half a million sterling, and a possible
loss of between throe and four hundred lives.
Mariolatory seems to be the latest develop-
ment of the High Church movement, and there
is a curious correspondence going on in. the
Church lienikt upon the subject. "An English
Lyman " writes that he is "among those
members of our Reformed Church who thank-
fully kneel at the Shrine of the Saints, and par-
ticularly of Her who, as Mother of God, is Queen
of Earth and Heaven ! " "T.W. S. " advises
that only laymen should be admitted to the
proposed confraternity, and that the Office book
should consist of the Angelus, the Litany of Our
Lady, the Rosary, and a few suitable hymns.
Another correspondent justifies the worship of
Mary on the ground that people sometimes say
I quite worship that person," which is by no
means the only instance in which rhetoric has
been converted into logic in order to support
Roman teaching. A fourth correspondent, Mr.
James Gurnhill, has the clear-sightedness to see
that there is no halting ground between the theo-
logical position and teaching of our Church on
this subject and those of the Roman Church,
and he holds that the arguments put forth by
Mr. Hardisty, Mr. Malet, and others must
logically lead to the belief in the Assumption
and the deification of Mary. He asks "is it
right, is it loyal to seek to introduce doctrines
and practises which have no warranty either
(ruin Holy Scripture or from the Liturgy and
formularies of Faith of that Church to which we
belong I" But Mr. Gurnhill stands alone in
asking this very pertinent question. All the
other writers declare in favour of Mariolatory.
The Insurrection in Herzegovina has not yet
been stamped out, and the prospect of stamping
it out is, apparently, as far off as the stamping
out of the Carlist Insurrection in Spain. The
Turks and the Insurgents have not yet come to
close quarters, and if the fusurgenta can help it
they will not, unless the Servians strike in, and
the Servians are kept in check partly by the
Turks and partly by the Austrians. The Powers
are talking of mediation, and it may come to
that even yet. But it is like trying to mediate
between kites and crows, and the Insurrection
will either die out without our ever knowing
how or precisely when, or it will end in &general
rising of the Itayalis and a war such as we have
not had in the East in our time.
Amid wars and rumours of wars, a serious
question for England is the possibility of a new
Caffer war. An able writer who has been accom-
panying Sir Garnet Wolseley through Natal had
a letter in the Times a few days ago in which he
pointed out very clearly_ the great danger to
which the colonista in Natal were exposed in
being surrounded by an active and warlike race
of savages already seven times as numerous as
themselves, and increasing with extraordinary
rapidity. In this instance the native race is not
retreating before the white man, but is multiply-
ing at a marvellous rate, and threatening to hem
him in. What is to be done I Shall we fight I
Shall we not have to fight, as we had to do more
than 20 years ago I
The Goias of St. Petersburg contains an
ominous article, complaining of the trouble
given to Russia in Central Asia by its anarchical
neighbours of the Elamite., and concluding that
not alone Khokand, but Kashgar, ought to be
civilised summarily by being swept into the
capacious bosom of the Russian Empire in Asia.
Possibly Yakoob Khan, who is victoriously
pursuing his campaign against the Chinese,
would have something effective to plead in arrest
of judgment before the decree of the Gob's is
carried out. But the time is at hand when
Russia, willingly or against her will, must come
into collision with Kashgar, and, whatever may
be our wishes, the issue cannot be doubtful.
Mr. James :Sanderson, so early as the 19th of
July last, stated that the wheat crop was much
rusted, that the yield would be deficient, the
quality inferior, and that the wheat area would
prove to be tinder an average. He now regrets
that, after six weeks' further inspection of a
large area in the southern, eastern and midland
counties, he cannot write more favourably of
the wheat crop. The brilliant harvest weather
during the last month has, doubtless, done much
to raise the fallen steins, to check the progress
of rust, and mitigate the effects of smut and
mildew ; but it could not cure the mischief
caused by July rains, expand shrivelled grains,
or improve crops already dead from rust, but
not matured. The heads are generally nut only
defective, but almost all heads grown on strong
soil incumbent on clay have several thin, half-
developed grains. The most blighted fields are
in Emit Kent, while a considerable area in Berks,
Kent, Harts, and Beds will yield an average
crop, and of excellent quality. Rivetta and
some of the harder red varieties are least mil-
dewed, while blight in the white varieties is
all but universal. The peculiar Mummy or
Egyptian wheat, of which a considerable
breadth has been sown this year, has suffered
severely, and is evidently nit suited for a wet
season—its hydra heads being only receptacles
for moisture and insect life. Although the
harvest commenced tau days later than in
ordinary seasons, rarely has such an extensive
i
area been cut n so short a time. In the
majority of instances the yield of thrashed-out
fields has been disappointing; indeed, the
quality generally is inferior, the grain being