The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-10-09 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

I.—Tux twsuaasertow IN PALERMO, the
revolt in Candia, the disturbances in the
Ottoman Empire, the agitation in Greece,
and even the reneaal of the efforts of
*ha 1 o • rist • o.ioo are% according to
a brilliant French political writer who
rejoices in the name of DI. Dreolle, "the
effects of a vast plot which has been
formed in the belief that a general European
conflagration would be the result of the late
German ear." With exception perhaps of
the rising in Crete, all these occurrences
have, however, subsided into a less alarming
aspect. The Greeks in Crete still hold out
against the Turks, and, to the discredit of the
telegraph, there is a report, believed to be
true, that they have successfully defeated the
Turco-Egyptian troops sent against then,.
The collapse of the excitement in the East
does not disprove the French politician's polo
tulate. Politics and plague are equally
epidemic; and when an outbreak of either
occurs, it is pretty safe to predict its exten-
sion in any given direction, and the predic-
tion would prove true as respects either the
moral or physical disorder, but we must take
into account the remedial resources of modern
times for keeping one and bed' in check.—
Thus in the instance before us France and
England are already understood to be bestir-
ring themselves to allay this oriental ferment
and prevent its spreading, by seeking to
obtain for Crete, us solution of the difficulty,
a sort of semi-independence such as that
enjoyed by Bervia and the Danubian princi-
palities.
twhh,l,lo..,7inasuce....o....,,,a...ti,htitairwaSe...:3urge and bulwark of
su mysteriouslong
defied
the
butno only
what the
thhee Professed m, a
armies of -Russia, that he was believed to be
deemed him,
wizard and enchanter and the non-super-
Prophet,
stitious a myth, whilst some inclined
to doubt whether he were
woinsuz—well, Schamyl has again amp.
peered upon the Soule, for the first

time since his capture in 1859, when
he wan sent with his family to Kalungs. He
re--appears as a convert to Russian clemency;
and his exile and its issues therefore remind
us not a little of those of a man of precisely
similar mould and character—the Emer Abd
el Kadir. Expecting nothing but harsh
severity from his Russian conquerors, the
prophet's mind and magnanimity seem to
have been completely roused by his having
on the contrary been loaded from time to
time with imperial favours. A spacious
abode wan placed at his disposal, an income
was secured him commensurate with his
wants; his favourite daughter died, and the ,
patriotic heart of Schamyl was touched to ,
and that the body was to be sent for burial to
the Caucasus in charge of a courier. Van-
quished no less by the Russian Emperor's
kindness than by his arms, the prophet was
not to be outdone in courtesy; but begged
that he and his might have administered to
them the oath of fidelity to the Government
of the Czar, saying :—" 1 am ready to pro-
nounce it before the entire people. I invoke
as the witnesses of my loyalty, and of the
purity of my thoughts, Almighty God and
Mahornet his prophet. I will take the oath
before the body, scarcely chilled, of my
beloved daughter Nephasato, and upon the
holy Koran." We cannot help reflecting
how closely this resembles the letter of
another great man in adversity written with
a very different result :—" Rochefort, July
13th, 1815. Roy highness—A victim to
the factions which divide my country, and to
the hostility of the greatest powers of
Europe, I have terminated my political
career and come like Themistocles to seat
myself on the hearth of the British people.
I put myself under the protection of their
laws which I claim from your Royal High-
ness, as the most powerful, the most constant,
and the most generous of my enemies.—
NAPOLEON." Schamyl was more fortunate
than Napoleon in living in a more advanced
, age of the world, though only half a century
later. The oath of fidelity was administered
some fortnight since to Schamyl and his sons
at Kalunga, the representative of the Russian
Government in the province addressing the
old warrior in these touching words:—" Live
in peace, valiant veteran, in this city where
your noble character is honoured, and where
your calm and modest life is a theme of
constant praise. May you long continue
this irreproachable life, glorifying the high
magnanimity of your protector, our beloved
sovereign Alexander the Second" Sehamyl's
reply, for which we must trust, of course, to
Russian sources, is represented as over.
brimming with loyalty. Thus we see for
ever verified the old old saying in Bophocles,
"When friendships fail, there may be refuge
with our direst foes."
lit—Loan SHAFTESBURY, an General Presi-
dent of the Social Science Congress, which has
met in Manchester, his been earning "golden
opinions from all sorts of men." Even the
Times in a leader of great smartness—and by-
the-bye Time, leaders, stimulated by Jewish
competition in the Doily Telegraph, have sparkled
out uncommonly of late—even the Times gives
the palm to our Dorset Lord-Lieutenant over
Lord Brougham the latter with "his wide re-
ceptive mind, his encyclopedic reading," re-
presenting "the weakness of the association
rather than its strength." Whereas, according
to "the leading journal," there has been seldom
read a more useful inaugural address than that
or Lord Shaftesbury. And why? He "has
had the good sense to confine himself to a tingle
subject, one which he thoroughly understands,
and on which his remarks will have the weight
due to experience and recorded achievements."
It will be readily understood that this refers
principally to Lord Shaftesbury's pleading for
the education of the children of the poorest of
the poor. We are sorry to think that in one
respect this appeal should be restricted, and the
claims of education in the rural districts
abandoned or postponed as hopelessly difficult,
partly from the scattered nature of the work
and population; partly from the reluctance
of adults to mingle with mere childien when
receiving instruction in connection with em-
ployment ; and partly also from the difficulty
of finding schools and teachers. Undismayed
by all these obstacles, we have ourselves on two
occasions laid before the Social Science Congress,
and in several instances endeavoured to interest
the Southern Counties' Adult Education Society
(see papers published two Christman.e back in
the Society of A rts' Journal) in • scheme of agri-
cultural instruction adapted to the lower plat-
form. On these emulous net only did the leaders of
the half-time movement, Mr. Charles Paget, Arch-
deacon Fearon, Mr. Buokmaster, of the Govern-
ment Science Department, South Kensington,
and others tender their support and adhesion to
the plan I but Professor Masson at Edinburgh de-
clared his belief in its being practicable, and in
our own district at Devises, Mr. Ewart, it. r.,
Mr. Denby Seymour, LA.., Mr. Wyndham
Portal, &c., advocated this object. We are sorry
that Lord Shaftesbury sees in it such insuperable
difficulty. But we [rankly admit that, urgent as
may be the claims and lamentable the ignorance
of the rural districts, there is !something terribly
more urgent in and around the towns. The
clerical editor of the Clerical Journal says in his
last impression that recently it was his duty to
unite in marriage two young persona rather above
the average in manners and intelligence, and yet
to his surprise when the work of registering the
marriage was entered upon in the vestry, he
found that four crosses were put down for their
four DAWNS—each of the four had been educated
—taught something—at the national schools, they
could both read and write a little, but having left
school at nine years of age, all that the school-
master had done had been obliterated and for
gotten. This is bad. But when the country
comes to be contrsated with the town in consi-
dering the effect of labour upon knowledge, this
that follows seems to us most horrible ;—" I
appeal to you," says Lord Shaftesbury, "on
behalf of 1,400,000 children, women and young
persons still under the slavery of cruel and
oppressive trades. .. . . I must dwell for a
moment on the abomination of the brick-fields.
. . . . There the female seems to be brought to
the lowest pitch of servile ignorance and degra-
dation. Hundred, of little girls from Bto 11
years of age, half naked, and so besmeared with
dirt as to be barely distinguishable from the soil
they stand on, are put to work in these abodes of
orpr...;nw Bearing prodigious burdens of clay
on their heads or in their arms, they totter to
and fro during many hours of toil." This we
fear is too true of brick-fields near great towns.