The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-12-25 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

I.—Yes, WI RAVI LEFT TUE POPS to settle
matters with his subjects without our assist-
ance; we have similarly abandoned President
Johnson and the American Congress • poor
Maximilian may get out of Mexico as he can,
or remain there a French prisoner until A. D.
1867 (the latest telegram says "the more that
you ask him the more he won't come") ; the
French press may criticise the army re-
organization scheme, and pull it to pieces as
much as they like; Bismark may organize
his new German Confederation on any pattern
he chooses without remonstrance from us; the
Austrian Government may reconcile itself to
the nationalities, or not; the Cretans may go
on fighting, or leave off; Greece and Turkey
may settle their disputes as they can; Spain
may indulge in a revolution without discom-
posing us; Holland, Switzerland, Denmark,
Roumania, or any other Powers not powerful
and Principalities that are not principal, may
resolve on re-constructing their armies and
adopting breech-loaders, without exciting
remark from us; Reform at home, political,
military, social, in all its very necessary
shapes, is tabooed; Fenianism, even, might
as well be threatening Poland or Hungary.
None of these, or the many topics of these
stirring times which a few days ago formed
the staple of political gossip, have half a
chance of our notice now. They have all
been put aside for the present, and only one
matter stands between us and Christmas
enjoyment. That, alas, is a sad subject. At
this festive season, all but the thoughtless
keep a large corner in their minds for the
victims in the late mining accidents and their
poor bereaved relatives. We cannot but
remember that hundreds, nay thousands of
mourners are gathered in a few hamlets of the
North, where every house has its own special
and absorbing grief, and there are no friendly
neighbours to comfort and console, because
all are alike afflicted and overwhelmed. Such
thoughts, no doubt, have influenced the many
subscribers to the Mansion House Fund,
for no man of sensitive mind could comfor
ably sit down to the Christmas feast until he
had done his share in endeavouring to relieve
the distress of the stricken colliery villages.
But having thus satisfied conscience, most
people would think it unnecessary to restrain
their own enjoyment of the festivities of the
season, or to throw a damper upon others.
Thus, in spite of the profound feeling
awakened by the awful colliery calamities, ,
Christmas is beinekept much as usual.
11.—CnitisTmAs ! Our readers having
perhaps their own notions of the becoming
surroundings of the feast, may connect it with
rural villages, where "the miseltoe hangs in
the castle hall, and the baron's retainers are :
blithe and gay," where friend, and neighbours ,
meet for worship at the ivy-covered church,
and everybody wishes everybody "a merry
Christmas," and where every cottage has its
absentee "home for the holidays" from some
great or little town. Perhaps, because
Christmas is so peculiarly s home festival, and
so many 'young men from the country"
hasten to avail themselves of this opportunity
of visiting their friends—because every rail-.
way advertises its excursions at this time—it I
may be thought that towns are deserted by
all who care to keep Christmas, and that the
festival is not duly celebrated there. This
would be a mistake—a great mistake. The
three million inhabitants of London, for
example—minus the few thousand excursion-
ists who leave it for the provinces at this
time—do know how to keep Christmas. and
make use of their knowledge. Otherwise.
what mean the noble joints of beef and of all
kinds of meat with which our markets and
butchers' shops are crowded to repletion, in
anticipation of the great day, without seeming
to get any the emptier for the throngs of
buyers. That means the plethora or turkeys
and geese at every poulterer's shop, not to
mention many extemporized marts for these
commodities; what mean the attractively
-
decorated windows of the grocers, with their
huge dish, of plums and enemata, "sugar
and spice, and all things nice," for Christmas
puddings; what mean the showy placards in
all the tradesmen's windows, announcing that
they are selling something or another specially
adapted, according to their ideas, for Christ-
mas use or "Christmas presents ;" what
mean the publican's insiduous announce-
ments of "Christmas hampers," and the
activity of their assistants for days before-
hand in bottling, corking, and labelling
Strong Mixing Gin, Finest Old Tom, Prime
Irish Whisky. Rare Old Jamacia Rum,
Cogniae Brandy, lac., &e.; what, above all,
mean the waggons arriving daily for a week
or two before Christmas-day, laden with
holly and miselthe for the festive decorating?
What mean these signs, and many more
which we have not space to enumerate, if
town as well as country does not keep Christ-
mas right merrily?
111.—ON rut Axxives.acay or TEI Fiala
of the Nativity—the very morn on which the
angels' song, with inglorious refrain, proclaimed
"on earth peace, goodwill towards men," it is
impossible we can have an angry word to as
We abstain, therefore, from controversial sub-
jects, as far as possible, in wishing our readers.,
one and all, "A )(MILT CHRISTMAN AND •
HAPPY SST, Yaca." So much kindness and
sympathy have we received under mamerited
suffering, that we should feel bound to express
this wish, and to show ourselves at charity with
all mankind, even bad it boen harder for us than
through God's mercy it happens to be, to wish to
others what we could scarcely hope to enjoy our-
selves. The ancient Homan sant-nu/Us gave
even to slaves the right of freely expressing
' themselves towards their masters, together with
the privilege of not only telling them of their
faults, but of smutting their faces at this festive
season; and, as the slaves of those days were
really often the only educated persons, or at
least the only persona trained in special accom-
plishments, we might reasonably assume that
they stood in much the same position to their
masters that we editors of newspapers and per-
iodicals now do towards ours—the general
public. We shall neither, on this occasion, use
nor abuse that time-hononred privilege, although
it would appear that we have now for years been
catering for the public amusement (and we hope
also instruction) at our own expense, and that
our immediate employers du not hesitate to
make us pay, as well as play, the piper. It is
even with sorrow and regret that we see a storm
arising around the heads of these ham-hearted
individuals who veiling their faces from the
blast, think themselves safe at a moment when
their fancied shelter is about to be *tripped up
about them, and strewn to the four winds of
heaven. We have great faith in poetical and
retributa,. justice, and cahnly await the day,

when, without our imprecation, it must overtake
three who have treated us with measureless
mitotic*. Our connections with the press in
Dorset have been singularly unfortunate ; but
we have been hitherto enabled to persevere
spinet the most unscrupulous undermining
influences of our opponent., and will, until our
mission be fulfilled. Prostrated by severe in-
disposition, beset on all hands by open and
covert foes, we shall not shrink from the task
that is obviously committed to as, satisfied as we
are that "the race is not always to the swift nor
the battle to the Pit w •i." To vast nintiliersr
many of whom are personally strangers, to whom
in common courtesy a reply is due, the pea of
extreme illness will sufficiently excuse our
inability to reply at present to a tenth part of
the condolence that has been extended to us on
the subject of • recent law case, of which not
half the iniquity has yet been disclosed. In
particular, but one opinion on • subject of vital
importance to all editors of high professional
status, thrust into a managing position by actual
proprietors who remain skulking behind, has
been expressed or endorsed by approval and
citation, by hundreds of our brethren of the
press. In Christmas week we refrain, how-
ever, from quoting even ant ; for we feel
perhaps somewhat like the poor fellow
who when thought to be dying was asked
to forgive his enemies, to which he assented with
this proviso, "If I dies, I'll forgive 'en ; but if
I lives, I'll at 'en again." Let it be understood
then that there is a Christmas truce afoot with
us; and that if the numerous contributions, the
satire, the indignation, the invective, the
argumentative legal remonstrance, extending
even to the organirttion of a county movement
for obtaining a better judge, as the old one
seems to have well merited now being pensioned
off, the various forms of suggestion that have
reached us, and the strong attestations of our
own conscientiousness (of which it is that our
enemies take the advantage), tire suffered to rest
for a moment in abeyance. it is only that we
may the more cordially repeat our greeting—
"A MURKY CHRISTMAS AND • Harry Now
YEAR."