The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1873-04-08 00:00:00

Noutt eatnitti_Cxpoo.

TITISDAY, /Mill. 8, 1373.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

Parliamentary proceedings had been getting
more and more tame for a weak or two pest, and
we had all become anxious for the display with
which Mr. Lowe would bring the first division of
the *melon to a close, A surplus, instead of a
deficit makes a vast difference in the potential
popularity of a Financial Statement and though
we may not have to thank Mr. Lowe or the
Government altogether for the surplus, it is un-
doubtedly to some extent their work, and they
receive the credit of it, and of resulting remis-
sions of taxation. More than many other Chan-
cellors of the Exchequer, Mr. Lo*e is essentially
an economist of the national finances, and people
find it impracticable to get out of him pants,
subsidise, or guarantees for any purpose not
absolutely necessary to the nation. As a
eluded scholar, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
would naturally feel loath to say no to the
request of the Earl of Stanhope for money to
explore the site of the greatest events of ancient
days : but he had no difficulty on Friday night
in meeting air G. Jenkinson's proposal for a
guarantee of £10,000,000 for the construction of
the Euphrates Valley Railway. Mr. Lowe,
indeed, has kept such a close hand on the
national purse-strings of late—he has had so de-
cided an objection to "being liberal with other
people's money," that his disposal of the surplus
has been anticipated as the most interesting
event likely to occur ins session that has become
so tame as to suggest strongly a dissolution in
the autumn as the only mean, of revivifying
Parliament.

I With the Seater Parliamentary rice- comas a
partial and short-lull in the fashionable season,
and London will now be in a great measure
taken possession of by Raider holiday-makers, In
anticipation of which both the railway companies
having lines from Dorset to the metropolis
announce excursions. But after these holidays
the season will be at ita height until Whitsuntide,
Already we have the announcement of a levee
for the 24th (postponed from the 22nd), and of a
Drawing-room to be held by Her Majesty on
the Bth of May, while the Queen's birthday is
appointed to be officially kept on the 24th of
that mouth • and there will doubtless soon be
notice of other Court receptions.
. . .

Quietly and gradually, but still appreciably,
Air. Gladstone is adding to the roll of Parlia-
meniary Peers, aa for many years almost every
Premier before him has done. The last two
additions are unexceptionable, as Peers so. The
Earl of Normanton wetted to a United King.
dom barony, and Sir Shaft° Adair raised to the
will form no unworthy accessories to the
te;:rzper House, but the process of diminishing
the Conservative majority in that House is too
slow to satisfy some Liberals, or to 'prevent a
revival at no distant date of • demand for re-
form of the House of Lords.

The conflicting opinions of the witnesses before
the coal committee of the House of Commons
have rather puzzled us as to the real causes of
the late great rise In the'prioe of ; but it has
been pretty clearly established, at all event.,
that the increased wages of miners, or the
shortened period of labour, are only to a small
extent answerable for the high prices. We are
therefore prepared to give more credit than we
should otherwise have done to the state-
ments at the Miners' Conference at Newport,
that the augmented wages of colliers bore but •
very smell proportion to the increase in the
charges for coal. Unfortunately, however,
colliers see in this disparity, for the most part,
only • reason for more 10 per cent, rises, so that
there is fear of exceptionally high prices becom-
ing normal through the action of trades-unions.
We have heard lately of colliers giving their
masters the option of paying more wages or re-
ducing the price of coals; but, after the experi-
ence the latter have had of their power, it Is to
be feared they will prefer • 10 per cent, rise of
wages to 620 per cent, reduction of prices; and
If they so decide, the coal committee have not
yet found a remedy for the imposition upon the
patient British public.
The Atlantic left Liverpool a fortnight ago
with about a thousand souls on board, as one of
the finest of the splendid Atlantic steamers,
well manned, and as the Liverpool people aasert,
with ample supplies. It is said that coil ran
abort. Anyway, the steamship instead of keep-
ing her course for New York was making, for
some reason, for Halifax, The misleading of a
light--an error in the oftioersand watch of such
• vessel quite unexplainable—leads to the steady
steering of the ship in the dead of night on to a
rooky shore. The ship struck several times, fell
on her side, and sank, many hundreds of her
passengers being drowned either in their cabins
or in making for the rock. But for the dawning
of day, before the tide reached its full, those
who managed by swimming and by ropes to get
to the rock must have perished. As it was, the
fishermen, who, discovering signs of distress,
came and rescued the helpless mass on the rocks,
were unable to reach persons in the rigging on
account of the roughness of the sea that soon
beat over the spot where those who had been
rescued from the Jaws of death had stood. The
telegrams which have been sent do not clear up
the mystery of the ship making for Halifax, or
being, as she was, strangely out of her course.
Edwin Noyes, charged with participation in
the Bank forgeries, is undoubtedly suffering
grievance in being remanded from week to
week, pending tie arrival of Macdonnall and
Warren from New York and Havana revs*.
tively ; but it is a grievance that cannot be
prevented, as the charge against the first-named
prisoner cannot be heard without the present*
of his alleged confederates. Meanwhile, there
are • few circumstances worth pointing to in
commotion with this case. In New York
great efforts are being made to obtain the dis-
charge of Bidwell (Mactiontiell), and an
action for illegal arrest is threatened; while it
I. stated that the American Consul at Havana
has demanded from the Cuban authorities the
mimeo of iiustin Bidwell, on the ground that
he is an American citizen. Meanwhile, there Is
another Bidwell in the field. Detective
M'Keivie, of Edinburgh, who arrested the fourth
prisoner, supposed to be George Bidwell, must
be a man of considerable presence of mind, and
of more than ordinary Scotch humour; for when
Bidwell made several thrusts at the detective
with • supposed sword-stick, Mr. M'Kelvie took
• small bottle out of his pocket, and telling the
former that it was a pistol (a "pocket pistol" of
course), said, " Stand, and be a gentleman, and
give me your hand; be • gentleman and not
coward." He then got hold of Bidwell's hand,
and stuck to it. He called the prisoner •
"brother," because he fancied Bidwell made •
Masonic sign—about as queer an exemplification
of Masonic fraternity as could be imagined.
Altogether, this ease promises to be rich with
Interesting incidents.