The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1872-03-05 00:00:00

113orset Gantt! Expreris.

rupsi).‘v, mAßelt t, 1871

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soo,,er were pave.: ter iiiii g ten. lii Oil 0
the political and soci ii topiee of *he day Owned.
hig, of (mum, the timorous (evernm..ut and
the chronic Tichborne Case)—than the audacious
folly of an obscure Whitechapel lad sot the whole
country all agog. By one act uniting aillinesa,
foolhardiness, and effrontery, all in the highest
degree, this wretched boy has succeeded In
bringing Priuoes and courtiers to a police-oourt
to beer testimony against him, has occupied the
attention of the chief magistrate in London and
of the First Oomutiaaioner of Pollee, and has
caused many columns of description and comment
to be written about him in the daily papers. It
is quite a relief that the offender is committed
for trial, and thus temporarily relegated to his
original obscurity. What seems most Anew
is the laxity of attendance which allowed this
youth access to the royal garden, and not only
to approach the royal carriage, but to make his
way round it after lirst prosentio; the pistol.
If the Queen's person is tit) iil guarded, not from
danger, for there was none, but from audacious
Insult, what wonder if foolhardy miscreants,
with nothing to lose, and thirsting for notoriety,
abould be now and theta found to take advantage
of the laxity of Her Majesty's attendants.
With all precautions, however. O'Connor might
have perpetrated nom aueh mischievous piece
of folly as he has committed ; and therefore we
should be glad to see condign punishment
indicted for his offence, seeing that he can be
fittingly punished by the existing law. In the
matter of garrotting and of wantonly damaging
works of art, the lash has been found a very
efficient punishment, aud it is just what suits
O'Connor's offence, and may prevent some other
Impudent fool from imitating it.
It is a long time since our Sovereign wad
exposed to a similar anxiety. It was in 1840
that Edward Oxford, also a youth of seventeen,
fired at the Queen and the Prince Consort twice,
and the bullets whiz.zed past the Royal pair.
Oxford was secured and afterwards found to be
mad, and confined In a lunatic asylum. In May
1842, a man tamed John Francis tired at the
Queen while she was paring down Constitution
Hill He was condemned to death, but the
puinalnuent was ,:otututited to transportation.
A mouth later a deformed lad, named Bean,
levelled a pistol at tho Queen near Bucklu,.liam
Palace; and in May, 1850, Robert Pate, who had
been a lieutenant In the 10th Hussars, struck
Her Majesty on the cheek with a stick, and was
sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. In
this case, as in the others, there was a plea of
insanity, but it was not admitted. It seems
Impossible that such attempts u... the life of a
generons-hearted Sovereign can . made by any
being in the possession of his sepses. O'Connor,
however, shows no signs of mental
derange-
ment. We trust that, as in former cases,
Majesty's self-possession will have saved her the
serious effects of a shock from which persons of
nervous temperament would not be likely soon
to recover.

It la announced that her Majesty intends at
the close of the mouth to pay a visit to the
Princess of Hohenloho, at Baden-Baden. It is
six years since she Queen saw her half-sister,
and very recently the Pruner has lost her
husband and her daughter, the Princess of Saxe-
Meinengen. The Villa Delmar at Baden has
been taken for the Queen from March 29th to
April 15th, and it is possible that her Majesty
may go on to Berlin to see her own daughter,
the Imperial Princess of Germany, who, like the
Princess of Wales, is expecting a further addition
to the Royal nursery.
The work of Parliament last week was almost
a blank. The House of Commons began on
Monday by talking about bushier and how to
get through it—kept holiday on Tuesday
trilled with a Salmon Bill on Wednesday,
wrangled over the Ballot Bill on Thursday—and
wound up the work of the week pleasantly
enough on Friday night by chaffing about post-
cards and Japanese treaties.
There are subjects which steadily make their
way from the conditions of crotchets and hobbies
to practical matters. The Ballot was one of
these. and Sir Bounden Palmer's School or
University of Law seems destined to be another.
When a resolution in favour of its establishment
I. supported in so practical an assembly as the
Howse of Commons by 103 t J 116 votes, we may
reasonably entertain a hope that the realization
of the scheme is not very far oil Possibly
there may be a school in the metropolis before
the new Law Courts are ready to be oecupied—
a consummation which the next generation of

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judges, lawyers, and suitors may poesibly witness.
The fact of tho Army Estimates showing a net
increase of upwards of a million, strengthens the
hope now pretty generally entertained that Mr.
Lowe will have such a comfortable surplus at hia
disposal that he will be able to propose an agree-
able remission of taxation. As he put an extra
twopence on the income-tax last year, which
addition he soon found he did not want, why
the best thing he can do is to take it oil again.
No reduction of taxation would be more popu-
lar. The working dames have of late years had
more than their fair share of remission; it is
now the turn of the middle classes.

On the Education question, the Ministry have
decided distinctly to refuse re-considering the
Act until it has had • fair trial. In this position
they will be strong, for the whole body of the
Opposition will be with them. Mr. Forster has,
no doubt, well weighed the situation, and la
reparod to adhere to the principle of utilising
aenommnatlonal sabots for national education.
Arrangements are in progress for the oompil-
ation of the new Doomsday Book. In oom-
pliance with the Earl of Derby's motion; the
Local Government Board have reoolved instruc-
tions to send in • return of the number of pro-
prietors of the soil (above an acre), in the United
Kingdom, with the quantity of the land held by
each This will be very interesting and useful
too. It will be "Burke's Landed Gentry" on a
large and almost monster scale, while it will
make many feel quite important to see them-
selves figuring, with local habitation and isine,
In the long roll of " estated persons,' even
though it be only for an acre and a rood. We
suppose the arrangement will be made alphabet:l.
milly and in counties ; the old Book"" being so
territorially drawn up, by five justices appointed
for the purpose in each The statistics will be
very convenient in • general sense: but Lord
Derby's primary object in moving for the return
is to show that the land of the °pantry is in
more numerous hands—perhaps in more than
300,000 (not in 30,000 as some of the Socialist
lecturers say)—than people think. In France,
where almost every peasant owns the more or,two
he tills, this would be a tremendous list and
labour to compile; and we suspect that people
will wonder to find how many Irish of the same
clam are their own landlords, from the opera-
tion of recent Acts of Parliament and the
hoarding habits of the people, who put out
every penny they can get in this way, thus anti-
cipating Mr. Blight's plan for • peasant pro-
prietary. This craving • for • little bit of land"
snot, perhaps, so great in England, or so easily
gratified; though from the fact mentioned by
Lord Palmerston (in • debate upon the law of
primogeniture) of • pilaw:it family on the borders
of the New Forest, which held the same ail
acres in unbroken succession from the days of
William Rufus (which laud was given them for
the use of a bullock Wail/ to carry the body of
the king when shot by Sir Walter Tyrrel to
Winchester), shows that when they got it they
can sometimes keep it bettor and with more care
than their superiors.
" Every day that intorvones between a quarrel
and a challenge," says an adage, "is a chance
the more for a pacific settlement,' and it is
smarted that the Anglo-American altuation looks
by no moue so uufavourable as it did • fort-
night ago. The reply to Earl Graeville's note
has not yet boon recoivod ; but it is said to have
been despatched by steamer from New York.
Gueseers at the contents say the Washington
Government stick to tho teat of their statement;
but will leave everything to Um Arbitrators. A
man's neighbours usually know more of his
akin than he duos himself; so we road it is
believed in diplomatic circle/ in Paris that the
English Government will accept the competency
of the Geneva arbitrators with regard to the
Indirect earns also. Wo question the accuracy
of the hitelligenoo, but on the whole we must
say things look more serene.
The old Emperor of Germany, whom health
has been causing anxiety, has greatly recovered
strength. It is well his Majesty is getting
stronger, for his groat minister, Primo Lismarok,
Is having a hard le with tho Ultramoutans
party in the Upper amber, whore it is largely
backed tq Cue feudal interest Everyw bore,
indeed, on the Continent that party is particu-
larly active now • and there can be no doubt it
Is doing Its utotoie to recover from the blow to
its Fewer given by the victory ef Proteetimat :

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