The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1873-06-24 00:00:00

THE DORSET COUNTY EXPRESS AND AGEICULTURA.6 GAZETFE, TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 176,

Dud Cattail 61Ire00.

TUILSDAY, lIINZ 24,

NOTES OF THE WI.

Her Majesty the Queen came from Balmoral
on Wednesday, in order to receive the Shah at
Windsor Castle on Friday, which happened to be
the 96th anniversary of the Queen's accession to
the throne. Ills understood at Balmoral that
Her Majesty, who greatly enjoyed her latobrief
sojourn there, will return about the 18th or 21st
of August.
The Shah of Panda arrived on Wednesday
afternoon, London turning out to give him a
heartier welcome than it has given to any of our
Royal guests since the visit of Napoleon the
Third, and till the end of nett week balls,
banquets, military and naval reviews, visits to
the Opera House, to the Arsenals, and to the
great centres of English industry are the order
of the day. The Shah was allowed to have the
first evening, Wednesday, all to himself. On
Thursday his Majesty received the Corps Diploma-
tique, dined with the Prince of Wales at Marl-
borough House, and finished the day with a ball at
Stafford House. On Friday he paid • visit to
the Queen at Windsor Castle, returning in the
afternoon, and was the guest of the Lord Mayor
in the evening at a splendid banquet and ball at
the Guildhall attended by 3,000 people. On
Saturday he went to Woolwich. Sunday was a
quiet day, and to-day (Monday) there is a great
naval review at Spithead, when the fleet will
represent, it is said, greater strength than all
the other navies of Europe put together.
The general impression made by the Shah so
far is very agreeable. At Moscow and St.
Petersburg everything was now to him, and the
Persian WY UOW SO the Russians. Western
civilisation was a puzzle to him, and he is said
to have disgusted the Russians beyond measure
by staring at • distinguished iccly who called to
see him from head to foot, saying nothing in
answer to her salutations, and then turning upon
his heel. The Empress Augusta taking the head
of the table at Berlin and proposing his health
after dinner must have been • new sensation to
him; and his novel experience at Berlin and
St. Petersburg has not been thrown away upon
our visitor. At Brussels he led the Queen into
dinner with a princely grace, chatted pleasantly
with the Papal Nuncio, asked after the Pope,
and connived to get through his dinner with a
knife and fork without much more risk of 'com-
mitting suicide than the mass of Christians.
Like most of the Eastern noes, he is almost a
vegetarian, living principally on fruit, with
sherbet for his only drink, and Covent Garden
is to be ransacked every morning to keep the
Palace well supplied with nectarines, grapes, and
strawberries. A table well stocked with these
and with a handsome jug of sherbet in ,
centre, was Owed in the railway carriage for the
Shah on his way from Dover to Charing Cross;
and although he rode with his back to the horses,
as he does Is the Royal terrier, he seems
to have enjoyed the journey, chatted with
the Princes ia French, and met the
Prince of Wiles and the Duke of Cam-
bridge at the Charing-oross station with as
much freshness as if he had only been on the
road for an hour or two instead of fourtese
hours, and most of that time in the Channel.
The Channel was for once. however, as smooth
as glass, the air was still, and the sky blue—
• very different state of things to what it was
when the Sullen and the Khedive crossed it.
The ladies all agree apparently in the opinion
that his Majesty is a handsome man, although
he Is hardly more than 6fl. 9in. In height, as
pals as a Persian can very well be, and wears
glass, the only Sovereign perhaps in the
world who does, and walks with a shambling sort
of gait which all the reporters are puzzled to
explain. The Times says it is a sauntering step,
, in which keen observers delight to discover
arrogance, dignity, carelessness, and ease. This
saunter takes the form of a stately step in the
Deify News, and a ahuffle with most of the rest.
But one and all agree that the Shah is every inch
a King, and when he throws off his cloak—a
loose robe of coloured cashmere lined with
fur—and .stands in the sunlight, with rays
of light trembling 'bought, diamonded epaulets
flashing to and fro acres his diamond and
ruby buttons, dancing. over the jewelled
orders on his breast, end breaking forth
Into a perfect flame of rainbow light down
the full length of the scabbard of his
scimitar, the ladies sigh at the tantalising
1 spectacle as they used to sigh at Court over the
pearls of Prince &tether'. iba Shah is keep-
ing • diary of his visit; but, like the Prince of
Wales, he has a special correspondent of his
own in his suit", the Editor of the Official O.U.
of Persia, and we may therefore expect in time
to hear what the Persians think of us and of our
war.
We now have the reply of the Archbishops to
the 'memorial presented to them early last
month against Roinish teaching in the Church
of England. The Archbishops admit the danger
insisted on by the memoralista of • considerable.
minority of clergy and laity in the Church
attempting to subvert the principles of the
Reformation, and in particular they express
themselves opposed to the system of the confes-
sional. They undertake to exercise their in-
fluence to check these practices, and, as far as
pueblo, insist on obedience to the law of the
Church; at the same time, they point out that
the laity possess powers in the election of
churchwardens and otherwise for the repression
of ritualism, which they frequently neglect to I
use ; and further, that more good is to be hoped
for from morel and kindly personal influence
than from judicial proceedings. On the whole,
the Archbishops think the condition of the
Church, notwithstanding the tendencies en the
one hand to unbelief, and on the other to
superstition, is hopeful.
The House of Commons has been fighting
with the difficulties of the Rating Dill. The
mode of rating growing timber gave rise to •
discusaion—ezhanstive, minute, and occasionally
very confined—which lasted many hours. First
of all, the clause was amended so as to include
land not used for growing saleable underwood.
To this Mr. Read proposed to add a proviso that
the gross value of such land shall be taken to
be the rent at which such land might, in its
natural and unimproved state, be reasonably
expected to let one year with another for agri-
cultural purposes. Ultimately Mr. Staruifeld
carried, by 88 to 74, an addition to the proviso
which gives the Assessment Committee the
alternative of reckoning the annual value at the
rent for which the land would let for the growth
of the underwood growing thereon. Mr. Read's
proviso as thus amended was agreed to ; and the
committee then proceeded to consider the next
point in the clause—the rating of sporting rights.
A proviso, moved by Lord George Cavendish,
that the rights to be taxed shall be snob as are
let or reserved to others than the occupiers of
the soil, and that the land shall be arresed at •
lower value for agricultural purposes than it
would have been if such rights had not been
reserved, wee negatived by 240 to 127. The
Bill, as introduced, proposed that the sporting
rights shall be taxed when severed Irons the
occupation or ownership of the soil, and Mr.
Shansfeld'a proposal to omit "ownership" was
resisted, but in the end that amendment was
carried by 274 to 88. A proposal to exempt
literary institutions from rating Was negatived
by a large majority, and the Government pro-
tested against the principle of exemptions at all.
Is opposition to Lord Derby's suggestions of
possible Injuries arising from the transference of
the Railways from the Companies to the State,
Mr. Edwin Chadwick has adduced some very
spot argument/. He said that Ihe railways
were now "under 110 independent bodies"—•
disunity which severed them from "the use of
12,000 postal establishments as receiving and I
delivering houses, for larger parcels than letter I
Germany and Switserland." This
=t as in a
involved a loss of from 20 to 25 per,
cent, in the cost of management, and a lose of
"an indisputable Irvin; of l per cent, on all
the Bond debts." He referred to the increase
In telegraph massages under the change of ellgies
from 236.326,000 In a year to 300,842,000, to
the injurious inflame of 172 Railway Directors
In the Legislators, and expressed • conviction
that the 300,000 Railway employs "would set
their ballots" for the transfer.