The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1861-12-10 00:00:00

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

The election of Visiting Surgeon to the
Dorset County lloepital still proceeds with
considerable animation. Within the district
there are nine Unions possessing votes. At
a meeting of the }Bendier(' Board of
Guardians on Friday, presided over by Hobert
Farquharson, Esq., it was unanimously re-
solved to support Mr. Emson, and a similar
decision has been come to by the guardians
of six of the other Unions. there are Wey-
mouth and another Union to send in their
votes. Weymouth will meet to-day, and it
is pretty certain they will, like their brethren
elsewhere, adhere to the popular candidate.
Of the other Union we have received no in-
telligence; but supposing those guardians
vote for Mr. Tudor, it is quite evident that
eight of the nine Unions will give their votes
in favour of Mr. Emson. It has been said
the instincts of the multitude are usually
correct," and this we believe is the ease in the
present instance. It must be as plain as a
pike-staff to even the dullest comprehension,
that it is safer to vote for one who is known
to be a good man, than for one of whom
little or nothing is known. The electors have
reposed in them a trust of the highest im-
portance to the patients of the hospital, and
that trust we are sure the majority will exer-
cise with the greatest fidelity. To vote for a
candidate of whom little or nothing is known
—however good a inan he might be—would
be to act on the principle of •• buying a pig
in a poke."
When O'Connell roused the spirit of the
nations in favour of Catholic Emancipation he
seemed a patriot inspired; when he raved for
"repeal" and " renta," he had degenerated into
a humbug. In the one character his language
had the ring of the rapt utterance of the seers of
old ; it was lofty, passionate, and poetical ; in
the other it was the bombast of the mountebank,
an inflated bathos, a fitting product of glorious ,
powers perverted from their true use. And if
this can be said of O'Connell, what may be said
of O'Conuell's imitators ? flow will history ,
speak, if she speak at all, of "Meagher, of the
Sword," of Mitchell, of Smith O'Brien, and of
the O'Donoghne I The Mat-named gentleman
presided at a meeting of an extraordinary cha-
racter on Thursday night in the City of Dublin.
It was convened for the purpose of considering
the Auglo-American crisis in relation to Irish
affairs, and was attended by the democracy of
the lowest type. Speeches were delivered full
of sympathy for America, and particularly hostile
to the British Government. The nearer the
language bordered on treason the more vehement
was the applause, accompanied by waiving of
hats, shouting, and cries of "bravo !" A com-
mittee of twenty-one was elected, of whom the
O'Dosioghue was appointed chairman for an
organization in the present state of affairs at
home and abroad, to "free the Celt from the
proud Saxon's yoke." There was a time when
Irish patriots had • mission to perform—a time
when Ireland was oppressed like a slave by the
nation which ought to have been her protector,
but those days have now passed away. During
the late visit of Her Majesty to that country,
only one "patriot" could be found with the
requisite amount of brass and bad manners to
attempt an insult upon the illustrious visitor.
One O'Doaoghue does not make an Ireland, any
more than one swallow does not make a summer.
That mighty " pathriot" may rage and imagine
as many vain things as he chooses, but we believe
Ireland to be loyal at heart in spite of the
treason-mongers and priest agitators. NVe will
trust Ireland in spite of the O'Donoghue, and
the ignorant riff-raff who applauded the "bosh"
he and his fellow orators spouted on Thursday
night last in Dublin.
Mr. Smith 0' Brien, the hero of a revolution
which ended ere it began; if a rebellion which
simply showed that in the cradle of its birth there
was no rebellious element; of a battle IV hich ter-
minated ignominiously among the unconscious
cabbages—not a single leaf of which was ensan-
guined with blood—in • widow's garden ; of •
treason which terminated, not on Toe er Hi lou
the headman's block, but in a full and free
pardon, has again thrust himself into public no-
tice by writing a kind of despatch to the
Secretary of the Northern States, pointing out
to him how the Federal Government ought to
meet the demands of England respecting the
affair of the Trent. The document is character-
istic of the man. He takes it for granted that
the seizure of the Southern Commisasioners was
intended by the Lincoln Government as "a
deliberate affront to the English nation," and he
applauds the act. Yet he afterwards counsels
the Federals.to "lose not an hour in liberating
the Commissioners," to patch up a peace with the
South," to "answer the British demands in the
language of diplomacy," and to keep quoting
precedents and parleying with England till the
North and the South, being reunitediand strong,
can again resume an attitude of defiance.

"It you make peace with the South," stye Mr.
Olkies, "there will be ao war F•aglead•