The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1873-09-30 00:00:00

Duet eon* (Eritrea.

TIIIBDAY, BMUS= 30, 1173.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

Most enjoyable we/Aber is being taken advan-
tage of by the Queen, Prince of Wales, and other
members of the Royal family who are in the
Highlands. The Duke of Edinburgh has gone
upon a scamper to Sebastopol, where also the
Cur has gone. The Duke visited Constantinople
on his way. The Shah has reached home, and,
as an earnest of what he intends to do, has
announced the cutting of the first sod of the
first railway in his dominions. The Sing of
Italy's visit to Vienna and Berlin will indicate
to the Pope very emphatically what that part of
Europe thinks of the Papal grievance against the
King. There is to be no spode] treaty, but the
three Emperors and the King are now under-
stood to be of one mind about the Ultramontenes,
and that will be made manifest if • French
Ultramontane be put forward as the Pope's
successor. . . .

While the Conservatives are still rejoicing
over their recent victory at Dover, and
the Liberals are trying to explain away the
significance of their defeat, and while both
parties are preparing for • hard fight at Bath,
two more seats in the House of Commons have
been vacated—one by the gasetting of Mr.
Henry James as Solicitor-Genera, and the other
ty the death of Mr. James Clay, who eat for
about a quarter of a oentut7 for Hull. Sir
Alfred Slade is in the field at Taunton for the
Conservatives, and if Sir Alfred should oust
Mr. James from the representation, the Daily
Telegraph admits that Liberals must, after all,
make • strenuous effort to believe in the reality
of Conservative re-action. Should Mr. Henry
James, however, have the good fortune to be
re-elected, Mt. Gladstone's Government may
congratulate itself on having secured the 11111,10011
of a very competent Solicitor-General. Mr
James is an able lawyer and • good debater.
He is not a thorough-going Liberal, but the
Whigs will like him, and the Radicals must
prefer him to the very clever aspirant to the
office whom the electors of Dundee were cruel
enough to condemn to a further period of private
life. At Bath the electors are called upon for the
third time in leis than five mouths to go through
a contest for their representation. Mr. Forsyth
Q C., is the Conservative candidate, and Captain
Hayter is once more the Liberal champion;
while the contest is somewhat oomplioated by
the presence of Mr. Thompson, who is the
representative of extreme Radical opinions and
the Permissive Bill. Captain Hayter's great
card In this contest is apparently to be the
abolition of the Inoome-tax, and he invites Bath
to return him upon the promise that if the
present Goverameat is kept in power it will
reduce expenditure so as to be able to do without
this inquisitorial and unjust tax." The ladies
have pronounced for Mr. Forsyth as they
pronounced for Lord Grey de Wilton, the
publicans will, it is anticipated, vote for him to
• man,and the teetotallers having in opportunely
started a candidate of their own, the Uoaserva-
tires anticipate the victory.
After their late sucossess, the Conservatives
speak more sarcastically than ever about what
Is called Mr. Gladstone's refusal to submit to a
new election at Greenwich. But really Mr.
Gladstone has little or nothing to do with the
matter. It teats with the Speaker of the House
of Commons during the recess to decide
whether a seat has been vacated, and to issue
his writ if he decides in the affirmative. If he
has any doubt, he will naturally wait till the
meeting of Parliament, and submit the matter
to the House. Clearly he has • doubt of the
bearing of the law in the Premier's ogee, and
therefore it will be referred to the House
for decision. But there is another matter
connected with the Ministerial re-construc-
tion at which some surprise is expressed; that
Is, why Mr. John Bright has not been gazetted
to the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan-
caster, which Mr. Childers is said to be anxious
to vacate. Have the recent utterances of the
Premier and of Mr. Forster with regard to the
question of primary education, or has the
Ashantee war, or have both combined, caused
Mr. Bright to hesitate about joining the
Ministry 1
The Foreign and War Office also have their
hands full with the Gold Coast Expedition. It
Is evident that Sir Garnet Wolseley has not
gone a day too moon. Small repulses have
lowered the British in the eyes of the neigh-
bourinv tribes, and the whole coast is now
mania us. Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Gosolisn, the
First Sea Lord, Sir Alexander Milne, and the
Financial Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr.
Shaw-Lefevre, are reported to have had long
consultations regarding the expedition, and it
has been decided to send • railway and'tele-
graph, material for bridges, traction engines,
and everything requisite for carrying the war
right up to Coomassie—a hundred and twenty
miles from the coast. It must be • second
Abyssinian expedition. An important wail-
aeration in connection with this war is, whether
the Government ought to commence it without
the sanction of Parliament 1 This question Is
being discussed at the autumnal political meet-
lap which are becoming general. Sir Stafford
Northoote has spoken out, and smaller men are
catching up the cry. He throws down the
gauntlet on the strength of Mr. Gladstone's own
remonstrances with Lord Palmerston for enter-
ing on the Persian war without the assent of
Parliament. • .

. -----
Happily we are getting out of the little
difficulties with Spain which almost threatened
to involve us in interference In that country.
The Deerhound and her crew have been given
up ; the Murillo his surrendered to judgment;
, and the irooclads elmanin and Vitoria have
I been delivered over to the Madrid Government.
It is • pity they were not given op a little
earlier, that they might have been able to inter-
pose between the Carthagenian ironclad' and
the population ruthlessly bombarded as an
alternative to contributions demanded for the
insurgent cause. Our rigid non-Intervention at
the last will be unsatisfactory to many, but
here is the difficulty, either we must do nothing
or see the matter through, with all it may in-
volve. The AM, says "We have • right, of
coarse, to protect English interests. We have
• right to punish attacks on nsutrel and peace-
ful commerce. We have further • right, as •
nation that believes in civilisation and
humanity, to Interfere for the repression of
barbarous and inhuman acts, just as individually
we should refuse to stand by coolly and see
murder done. Within these limits we have
acted, and shall act; but the precise nature of
our coaduct must be decided in acoordnice with
circumstances as they arise."
The most startling novelty brought out this
year under the auspices of the British Amocia-
tion is that of Confederated Homes and Co-
operative Housekeeping. This is an idea of
Mrs. King's, basked by hiles Lydia Becker, and
It is demanded, like free love and two or three
other whims of that description, in the name of
Progress and Humanity. The system of
"isolated homes," according to Mrs. King, is •
failure, and you have only to look at the growth
of clubs, balls, and clubhouses, to see that most
of the talk about an Englishman's attachment
to his home life is sheer nonsense. The first
thought of all people of means is how they can
keep away from home, and under our present
system servants are kept in • state of semi-
slavery. Mrs. King Insists that every servant
has "a right to enjoy the society of men ;" and
In order to make things a trifle pleasanter all
round, she proposes to abolish our present home
life, and to substitute for isolaed homes and
separate establishment,' confederated homes and
co-operative housekeeping. That is, we are all
to live in big hotels, one hundred families taking
shelter under a single roof, and • lady with a
genius for housekeeping and for keeping an
army of servants in eider is to take charge of
us in the gross, to do the work of the bones by
the aid of relays of servants—one set coming
at, say, six in the morning and remaining till
one Of two o'clock, • second set remaining till
nine or ten o'clock, and one or two night guar-
dians remaining till the following morning; and
all the cooking being carried on in • single
kitchen. This, according to her thinking and
Mies Becker'', Is the only alternative of reducing
servants to real slaves or of every lady putting
on an apron and turning her own cook and
housemaid. Mrs King has no patience with
the mass of housekeepers at present; but the
v'kest link in the chain of isolated homes is
the system of domestic servitude. This is said
to be the worst failure of all. "Servants are
the weak point in every house, and they will
remain the weak point until domestic labour is
organised upon • proper system. The reined/
is to let sunsets work thoroughly while they
are at work, and let them have plenty of time
to play the piano or anything else ;" and Mrs.
King Utters herself that she has hit upon aEltan
that will enable them to do this, and pis r
bring d Into domes* service many girls w
never drum of puede( tiseeseelves under

tbs petty tyranny of a =Aar or mistress. A
suggestion of this kind inn, of mum. only be
tasted, ea Mr. Pontar said, by experiment; and
Mrs. King will start a Confederated
grater with its machinery of air tubes, electric
bells, lifts, and all the rest of it, and tell us how
the plan works. She can hardly expect us to
give up our isolated homes, with all their
faults and failures, upon the mere chance of
this new system turning out a SUOMI.