The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-09-25 00:00:00

DORCHESTER. TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER SS. UM.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

I.—Tnn GOOD PEOPLE OF BERLIN have
done their rejoicings over Prussia's victories and
aggrandisement; the Italians are preparing
to do the same over their good luck in having
had a fortunate ally, so soon as the conclusion
of the peace negotiations shall cause the
evacuation of Venetia; the French govern-
ment has offered a half-hearted congratulation
in the shape of N. de Lavalette's note, to
the bumblers of Austria; even Russia has
recognised the consequences of Prussia's
triumph; and as for our own country, having
maintained an attitude of non-intervention
from the beginning, she can view the modifi-
cation of the map of Europe unhumiliated ;
for if she has gained no glory, like Prussia,
she has not been snubbed or annoyed, like
France or Russia. The recent rejoicings at
Berlin, therefore, and those coming on in
Italy, may be regarded as the finale of the
late bloody drama, if the French Emperor's
professions are to be trusted. Yet all the
great States on the Continent seen to be
very uncomfortable, and not yet to have
settled down in their absolutely or relatively
new positions. Prussia, Austria, and Italy,
have all had their houses turned inside out
" durmg the alterations," and they will
require a good deal of putting to rights
before their proprietors can feel at home in
them again. Such are something like the
reflections to which we confine ourselves uow
in regard to the affairs of Western Europe;
and we feel a more languid interest in these
because of the commotions which are attract-
ing our eyes eastward. Although we receive
very little reliable intelligence by telegraph
of the Greek movement, yet enough comes to
hand to show us that very serious
consequences may arise out of the Greek
insurre,tions—no less, perhaps, than the
downfall of Turkey, and a European war
over the possessions of the deceased "sick
man." So many stories come to hand, now
attributing the Greek movement to the
instigation of Italy, now to that of Prussia.
and again to that of Russia and the United
States, either independently or in collusion,
that people are inclined to believe none of
these allegations, and prefer to think that it
is the mere infection of nationality, caught
from Western Europe, that influences the
Greeks.

lI.—A PERT LAIR OUTCROP of Albert
Statues being ready to adorn the land,
Manchester and Liverpool have been less
fortunate in securing the aid of Royalty in
their inauguration than Aberdeen in unveil-
ing its statue of Her Majesty, where the
Prince of Wales in his Highland bonnet very
gracefully assisted, and where even the Prime
Minister, Lord Derby, though purely by
accident, was in attendance. The Albert
Statues too of costly bronze, and mostly by
foreign artists, seem put to shame by the
much more beautiful productions in Sicilian
marble of Her Majesty by Mr. Brodie, a
native of Aberdeen itself, who was highly
complimented by the Prince on the effective
appearance of the figure when exposed to the
public gaze. Marble grows grey beneath
our weeping skies, and no kind of limestone
can be very durable in our stormy north,
still bronze sculptures at first so bright and
shining, then an exquisite green, become
se frightfully grim and black in smoky
cities, that even in Paris, where the
chief smoke-clouds one would think were
those of tobacco on the Boulevards, they have
to the horror of the lovers of art who rather
prize this incrustation of bronze, thought fit
to scrape the bronze gates of the Madeline
against the assemblage of all nations in the
city of all delights in the spring of 1867. It
was a favourite notion of one whose memoir