The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1874-05-12 00:00:00

.floniet Conhi express.

TVFAIDAY. MAY. I. IPAL

NOTES OF THE WEEK.
The Queen, accompanied by Princess Beatrice,
paid a visit to the Empress Eugenie, at Camden- ,
place, Chiselhurst, on Saturday. The Prince of ,
Wales presided at Marlborough House, over a
meeting of her Majesty's Commissioners for the
Exhibition of 1851, who resolved that the series
of International Exhibitions should be discon-
tinued after the closing of the present Exhibition
in October. The now Chelsea Embankment was
opened by the Duke of Edinburgh, who was
accompanied by the Duchess.
Mr. Arthur W. Peel has resigned the duties
of Whip to the Opposition in the House of
Commons, owing to ill-health, and will be
succeeded by the Right Hon. W. P. Adam, who,
at the request uf the leading members of the
Liberal party, has consented to give his services
in that capacity.
The Registrar-General's mortality tables for
the put quarter are highly favourable, the
public health being better than usual, and the
marriage rate the highest since the autumn of
1865, indicating general prosperity, but the
birth rate was a little below the average. In
Dorset, however, the natural increase, as we have
before observed, is very large, the number of
births being 1,371 against 866 deaths, or an
addition of 505 to the population. The marriages
were 363, but this is a falling-off, and the
Registrar-General, noticing it as !general in the
agricultural counties, attributes it to the fact
that "the prospects of the young labourers have
not grown more cheering." The details of the
several registration districts of Dorset do not
contain much that is noteworthy. Bridport is
the only district where the deaths exceeded the
births, and there they were 66 against 55. Of
those who died 16 were infants under one year,
and 17 persons of 60 and upwards; but there
were eight deaths from scarlet fever, one from
fever, two from measles, and two from diptheria
—an unsatisfactory return, calling for sanitary
amelioration. In Beni Regis the ages of the ten
persons of 60 and upwards who died averaged
78. As a good illustration of the rise in the cost
of the necessaries of life of late years, we quote
the following
Taking the averages of the two years 1852-3, and
1872.73, it is found that the price of wheat has risen
23 per cent., the price of potatoes 31 per cent, the
price of mutton 40 per cent, the price of beef 50 per
cent. ; thus the price of meat, taking the mean of beef
and mutton, has risen 41 per cent.; and if we take the
mean of the rise in the price of meat, and of the price
of wheat, that is 31 per cent, to represent the rise in
the price of the conunsin necessaries of life, it follows
that 1:134 will purchase now only the same quantities
of those necessaries as £lOO purchased 20 years ago."
The Poole Election Petition inquiry has been
, proceeduig all the past week, and many curious
matters illustrative of electioneering have come
to light. But there seems little to justify the
! anticipations of the petitioners ; and Mr. Justice
, Grove has in point of fact rejected all the alle-
gations made, save as re treating. This
! occurred at the "chairing' of the hon. member,
when almost every publican got an order to
distribute "a hogshead of beer ;" and a little
more or less 114:e11111 tAt have been of no Cnn3e-
, quence. But even this was not done with the
sanction of Mr. Waring or his agent, though the
publicans had faith he would he liberal enough
, to pay the bills, as he did under similar circum-
stances in 1868. If contributing to celebrate
; a t ph of Liberalism in a time of general
disaster is an offence, surely it is a very venial
ono, and ought not, unless coupled with evidence
of gross general corruption, to invalidate an
election.

If Parliament adjourns, as suggested, as early
as July 15, there will be little enough thee to
dispose of measures of social reform which are
now before Parliament. There is the Licensing
Bill, which will be opposed warmly by some
classes—the extra half-hour into the night
meaning extra drunkenness and more midnight
disturbances ; while the publicans are not
supposed to be greatly delighted with the
pp posed concessions made to them, and intend
asking for re. Then we have before the
Lower House Mr. Mundella's Factory Act Bill,
the spirit of which is adopted by the Govern-
ment; in the Upper House the Archbishop's
public worship measure, which does not gave
much satisfaction; and in the Lower, Education
Act amendments, the Government having, by a
minute, nu eh tied the policy of their predecessors,
in permitting guardians of the poor to provide
inferior educatiott for pauper children to that
intended, the third instead of the fifth standard
being sanctioned. Following in the wake of the
Bishop of Peterborough, it is said the Duke of
Richmond is prepared to bring in a Bill. to
abolish patronage in the Church of Scotland.
Mr. Gladstone has sent a letter to Mr. Colman,
M.P. for Norwich, acknowledging an address
from the Liberal associations of that city, and in
it the right hon. gentleman says :
It wouhl he premature and over-bold in me, perhaps_,
to speak of the future in a retrospect of the past. I
can truly say, that while I am conscious of many faults
In the execution of my design, I have ever sought to
serve the Liberal party in the constituencies of this
country upon terms honourable to all concerned, and
their uniform kindness awl unls 1111 l (1.1 indulgence will
always he the subject of any grateful recollection. If
for a moment they staffer political depression, I
remain cont ince.l that the principal causes of it are such
as redound greatly to their honour, and if so, such also
aa will tend, not to reduce, but to augment and
consolidate, their lasting strength.