The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1880-08-24 00:00:00

REGATTA

The annual rowint regatta wss held at Bournemouth on
Thursday last. Toe new promenade pier, the east and
west cliff, and the beach wire lined with spectators, and
the Kens was a very animated one. The sea was perfectly
calm—just the reverse to whet it vu lett year—when the
strenge.t men proved the yid. re. Sheer strength. how.
ever. cool I not t. II realest skill on Thursday last. The
weather was beautifully one, and there was a large attend-
ance of the fair sex, attired In almost every vsrlety of
fashion. As will be seen below, the Southampton and
Portsmouth rowing men figured conspicuously as prise
winners. The results of the various events were as
follow : -

Junior s-ulle.—First prlz.i, value .C 1 11.. 6 1. : Ll Is.
There were six en:rics and five started, with the f Towing
result :—J. Pitt (3 suthstupton Roving Clul.).1; J. Turner
(Witirnemouth P. wing Ciul). 2; 8. E. Gibbs (Southaull -
ton Rowing Club). 3. Won by six lengths.
Giaatguard gins; open to members of the wastguard
service only.—lst prise, £4; 2 id, .01101. •, 3rd, £l. Seift
(Bournemouth), 1; Fear Net (Studland), 2. These were
the only two entries, and in another heat 1. r the third
prisi, slier changing boats, the Studland mu provel
v Mho .us.
Amatvur senior fours (eith soxiwain).—F vet prize,
value £10: 2.1. .P.. 6 5.; 3,1, .C 3 3s. Seven computed.
Avenger (F. Persons. C. Johnoon, It. Symonds, and F.
Silsbury C. Payne, cu:). Shanklin Rowing Club, Isle of
Wlzht, 1; Unlaunted (J. llliock, A. V.irriharii, W.
Skates, sod J. Roused: F. C Galley, cox.), St. B ',Areas
liming Club, Ven,nor, I. W., 2; Mistletoe (.1. C. Chlrlton,
K Charlton. W. A. Hawkins, and C. Needing ; T. R.
Saxon, cog.), Poole liming Club, 3. There was • differ-
ence of seven woods Innen en first end second.
Amateur Junior touts, with cogswaina—First prise,
value £5 ; seonl. £3 34. There were eight le.ats
started. Arrow 11. Dimmer, G. Wider, C. Evan*, S. R.
Gibbs, J. R. Adams, cix 1, Southatopton Rowing Club, 1 ;
Victoria (names wit given), Kirtamoutb, 2 ; Undsunted
(.1. Murphy, G. B irrougha, R. Bailer, L H. Field, A.
Sayers, cox.), St. Bonif ace R iwiug Olub, Ventnor, 1.W.,
3. This was an exceedingly so xi race, • close struggle
between iutbautpton awl Portsmouth min taking place
for the first position, whiLli, however, fell to the South.
ampton men alter some plucky spurting. This event was
rowed in 45 seconds leell time than the senior fours.
. .

..,--- „
Amateur junior paira—First trigs, value £2 : second,
: third, 10,. Seven en,ries, four started.—Quartis
(A. B. Atkinson and J. A. Nethercote), Boornetueuth
Rowing Club. I; The Alice (S. White and C. Dixon).
Iburnsmouth Rowing Club, 2; Flash in the Pan (A. P.
Moot and W. R. Bishop), Et oirnemouth Rowing Ciub, 3.
The Quartis came in first by 15 seconds.
Amateur senior psirs.—First prise, value £41.. ; lad,
£2 2s. Four boats started, but there were six entries
Mabel (Symonds and Fa/twea). S.uthsea Rowing Club, 1;
Little Test (J. Turner and 11. G. New), Bstunemouth
,wlng Club, 2; won easily by six lengths.
Amateur senior senile—First prise, value £2 10.. ; 2nsi,
LI 10..—Adela (H Symonds), Soothe°, Rowing Club, 1;
Toe Utile Star (J. Hasler), Bournemouth R Ming Club,
2; Adsda(K Bslue). Southampton Rowing Club, 3. This
was gully won by 13)131 soda who had his opponents in
baud, rnd won as he pleased.

POOR LAW GUARDIANS ON EDUCATION.
(Coadenied.)

As soon as a new Administration came into ponies-
sion in Downing-street, and the Ministers who are
responsible for the Educational Department of the
Government loudly proclaimed their determination not
to allow the standard of education in public elementary
schools to be lowered, the Guardians, from the Land s
End to the Tweed, betook themselves t•, the task of
pelting the Government with petitions against giving
the children in our schools any instruction above the
meanest and most elementary level. The movement
came somewhat late in the day. At about the time
when Lord John Manners, then a member of the
Government, made in the House of Commons an
observation to the effect that the statesman who is
now Prime Minister had but few supporters in the
country, and that those few were dwindling in num.
bens every day, a dead set was made against the cost
of School Board education by such members of the
House as Mr. Reginald Yorke and Sir Charles Russell;
the expenditure by the London School Board ,waa
violently *tacked, and the then Vice-President Atha
Committee of Council on Education offered the most
direct encouragement to these attacks, expressed his
Intention of putting • limit upon the amount per head
expended by School Boards on the instruction of their
children, and vaguely shadowed forth a scheme for
keeping within exceedingly elementary lines the educa-
tion given to poor children in schools where the weekly
fee was low. That was the beginning of a keen
agitation among the anti-School Board party in behalf
of School Board economy; a discussion was forced
uwo the, Loudon. School Board which lasted many
weeks, and spectators were led to believe that the
burning question in England was the extravagance of
the School Boards and the lavish e::penditure of public
money upon the education of children in Board schools.
Then came the triennial election of the London School
Board, which the opponents of the Board school
system had been thinking of a good deal in the
agitation upon expenditure, and the expenditure and
economy cry was very loud indeed in the appeals to
the electors. But as Lord John Manners had Wen
misted as lb the state of public opinion with rest
to the man who was so soon to be the chief of a 1131)W
Administration, so the reactioniste in education had
miscalculated the feeling about the cost of education
In the Board schools among those who had to pay the
money in the metropolis. The result of the triennial
election was an extraordinary triumph for the Board
school party. The people who had the votes had
hardly been touched by the economy outcry. and in
another three months the political party to which the
economists belonged were deposed by the verdict of
the nation. Almost the last act of policy of the out-
going Government was the act of the expiring Com-
mittee of Council, by which it wan sought to commit
the country, in an amended Code of Education, to the
removal of the specific subjects from the fourth
schedule, and one of the very first signs of a change of
policy when a new Ministry took possession of the
offices was the repeal of this change. A noble lord
who was a member of the outgoing Administration, in
his place in the House of Peers entered • formal and
elaborate protest against this repeal, and even carried
a resolution in the tipper House in favour of the stroke
of reaction which the Duke of Richmond aid Lord
oe,ente Hamilton had introduced in March and which
the Earl Spencer and Mr. Mundella erased in May.
It was when the story had about reached this stage
that the Board of Guardians of Newton Abbott—it
union in which only a very small proportion of the
population are under bye-laws—discuased the question
of education, arrived at the conclusion that the system
of instruction In the schools had become excesaive, and
passed • resolution calling upon Parliament not to
allow "higher subjects" to be taught in the elementary
schools. So fervent and determined were the
Guardians on the point—which had already been
finally settled against them by the new Government
that they sent a copy of their resolution to all the
Boards of Guardians in England and Wales, and
from that time forth memoriaU poured in upon Lords
and COlll/110LID from the Union. in all parts of the
kingdom praying those honourable houses to exclude
the teaching of these "higher subjects." This chorus
of memorials against the optional teaching of a couple
of special subjects in association with Standard W.
in our schools comes, not from any public body
engaged In any way in education, but from the Boards
of Guardians whom Lord Sandon selected as the bodies
who should be thrust in to prevent the e:;tension of
the School Board system; it comes at • time when the
Crovernment, evidently out of harmony on educational
matters with the memorialists, has announced its
resolution to make no such change as that prayed for;
and it comes 64 the piniod %then the Covernment must
be beginning to take into consideration, with a view
to future educational legislation, the question whether
or not it may be necessary to bring to an end the
system of Union School Attendance Committees and
to nnver the nomntry ov;th 164 51.1.2.11 ttnarr I ily_ootom,
the extension and completion of which the Union
Attendance Committees introduced by the legislation
of 1876 were intended to prevent. It is surely
unfortunate that this swarm of petitions—the tardy
outcome of the already discredited educational economy
agitation of last year—should at such • time have been
cast at the heads of the Administration which was in
the early spring of this year chosen by the voice of the
nation in the teeth of that reactionary education cry.
—Sawa Board CAresicle.

ALARMING STATE OF IRELAND.
Mr. Forster has suddenly been called off to Ireland in
order to confer on the spot with the Lord Lieutenant and
other authorities there as to the condition of affairs. It is
odd that some of the Irish officials in Dublin have azain
been urgently pressing for a renewal of the Coercion Acta.
and It largely depends on Mr. Forster's report to a Cabinet
Council early next week whether the Government will
adhere to their resolution of dispensing with extraordinary
powers. For a considerable time OD Thursday Mr. Forster was in communication with the officials at Dublin
Castle, and had • lengthened interview with the law
adviser.
That shameful exaggeration has been practised with
reference to the state of Ireland is shown, not only by
the collapse of the report respecting the intent to blow
up Cork barrack', but also of the other sensational ones
about Mr. Forster's visit It now transpires that the
right hon. gentleman had to be in Ireland
about this time to consult with the Under Secretary on
various matters, and if Parliament had been prorogued at the usual time Mr. Forster would have gone to
Ireland by this time, and remainel at his post in
Dublin. Mr. Forster has been somewhat surprised by
the exaggerated reports which have been published as
to the cause of his sudden return to Ireland. It was
supposed that the telegram he received when dining with
the Duke of Argyll conteiued tory arm, e information as to the condition of the country; but in reality it appe,rs.
upon the very best authority, that it had reference only to
the extraordinary forestial sessions for Presentments ter . relief works.
The police made inquiries into the report, saw the
railway authorities, and aaoertained that there warn not
C shadow of fouadation for the statement that any
powder had been packed up there, or that crowds of men
Wbd. DS IRS reported, been amen in the IcesdOy.

Further conmpondenai respect ng the allowance and
travelling expeneee of Sir Bartle Frere as High Corn.
mission& of South Al_ ,rica has been published In • despatch of July. Sir Bartle Frere objects to the with.
&mai of his special allowance of As.uuo, and gays he is
unable to see tUt such withdrawal is consistent with the
terms on which the allowance was granted or instilled by any real reduction In the Mbours, responsibilities. or . up= on of his efkat •