The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1872-12-31 00:00:00

grad Cot* Expoo.

TUESDAY, DllOllll3lll St, 1/17/

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

"A Happy and Prosperous New Year" is
' the first expresdon that occurs at this swoon in
meeting with • Mend Or writing • letter, and
we offer the compliment to ill our readers with
the heartiest of good wishes.
The past year has been lem eventful than
usual • no important changes hove been accom-
plished or commenced, 00 Interests have been
y affected. Her Majesty the 440•00 ham
greatly
din the hearts of the people more univer-
sally than ever before, and on the few occasions
when the Sovereign has appeared in publio—
notably at the thanksgiving for the recovery of
the Prince of Wales—bee called forth • warm
display of unaffected loyalty. The Royal Primo.
have all of them done good awake by taking
part in many public ceremonials, and the
/sovereignty of the Hones of Brunswick seems
at the prompt time as firmly established, not-
withstanding the fitful gleam of Republicanimn
which has been seen during the year, as at any
former period. The Parliamentary seesion,
which was begun with the appointment of Mr.
Brand as Speaker in the plain of Kr. Denleon,
who had been raised to the Peerage as Visoount
I Oellingtotn,_. rimed off quietly, and the Govern-
ment, whieh seemed in great danger at its
commencement, gradually gained strength as
time went on. Members did not wish for •
dissolution, and the country did not call for
one • and in such • state of things • Ministry
min be very weak or very foolish if it cannot
take advantage of a general opinion that its
continued existence is convenient. The °oilier
business was very awkward, the Ewelme blander
gave offence, but both were passed with • warn-
ing. The Ballot was the chief mamma of the
senion, and it pained, after varying fortunes,
considerably changed from when it was intro-
duced. The Licacelng Bill, the Scotch Education
Rill, the Mines Bill, and the half of the Sanitary
Bill were framed with a commendable anxiety to
get through Parliament what it was really posdble
to carry. Mr. OardwelPs army seisms was ahm a
step in the right direction, and conducted to the
localization of the army and the consolidation
of the regular and the reserve forest The
' Megara disaster, and Mr. Reed's strictures on
the Admiralty rained • momentary fear respect-
ing our naval supremacy, but Ste long the
conviction generally obtained that on the whole
our navy is In excellent condition. This
Budget was simplicity itself, and the relief
of twopence off the biomes tax made it generally
acceptable. After the session had closed, the
, Government had the satisfaction of geeing the
Autumn Manoeuvres conducted so es to please
gime engaged, amuse the public, and peed*
Improve the army, and also of finding that the
Ballot Act, when 1,,,` In practice, answered the
expectations of its fra,..ers, and that it did DOI
produce the abs 4.. tiou tr.' voting which had ,
been reseona!,ly ',.ared. Ib, 13ost Important of
r.litical events Las been the ( Arbil/WOO,
• 110•;ar person will be ate , t Tannnunag
whether we bete most to rejuloe vver it; having
escaped • war with kinc3on mourn Wee
i• the humiliation at which cur escape was pur-
enased, and the discredit which the syntans of
referring national differences to arbitration hal
undergone. Trade has been prospecrwa tat'
year, but the prosperity of the country has for
the general public been largely counter-Waived
by the high prices of coal andiron, the rise uf
railway rates, the augmented cost of labour, the
badman of the harvest, the storms and rains of
the autumn, and the rise in the Bank-rate caused
mainly by the bullion operations of Germany;
while for employers it has been in a great degree
neutralised by the geoeral &organization of the
labour market. Employed persons of nearly
every clam seem to be haunted by the question
for ever running in their heads, Why do not we
too strike? The agricultural strike began with
the year, and has continued with varying energy
and rumen. The Bishop of Gloucester stirred
up the flame of strife with • foolish joke, and
one or two great proprietors have treated the
Unionists too much as rebels, but on the whole
the fended gentry and farmers have met the
movement with fairness and good sense. That
in many places • considerable inclose) of wages
' was actually obtained, and schemes for emigre-
tion set on foot, showed that the strike had
something of the justification of soceess ; but
the stage appears lately to have been
reached when demands for what is possible are
passing into dreams of what Is impossible.
France has escaped violent commotion, and has
shown that it can borrow on the most gigantic
scale and can support, or at least vote, new taxes
of the most burdensome kind; but it has been
bewildered by paltry contests for power, and
deafened by the wrangling. of an Assembly that
can neither provide nor endure good govern-
ment, The conquerors of France have been
occupied in the work—necessary perhaps and
useful, but certainly not glorious—of humbling
rebellious ecclesiastics and reminding • stiff-
necked aristocrary that it is living in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. Spain has been
occupied in obliging its young King to show
with what gallantry and address he can balance
himself on the edge of a precipice; sad Italy
has been almost prostrated by • succession of
strange phylscal calamities, and has had se&
of her most fertile places made desolate by the
fires of Vesely= and by the waters of the Po.
Austria and Russia have been quiet in the
extreme, although • year may seem perhaps
more than usually satisfactory to Austrians who
have seen in it something like an approximation
to a budget honestly Wanesd and to I{olllllo/
who have during its course taken full advantage
of the command of the Black Sea, won for them
by the well-judged audacity of their diplomacy,
and have revealed to Europe, and especially to
England, how soots they will be misters of
°antral Asia. In the United States there has
been • Presidential contest, which ordinarily
ia an occasion of legitimate excitement, but
which offered this time nothing to Americans
but the humdrum necessity of re-electing the
existing President in order to escape the ridicule
and disgrace of electing his opponent.
The peat weak has been • blank politically,
and of social subjects the education question is
the only one that can withstand the relaxing
influences of the ION=; and even that, in this
time of pantomimes, has come im in • grotesque
way. A 1/001&11 was summoned to the Marl-
borough-street police-own for neglectingcna:
thethet
send her children to Ithaca, and
was chilblains and a blistered heel! One child
amid not be allowed out in the wet, and the
other could not get his boot on. The magistrate
maintained that it was perfectly absurd that an
Act of Parliament should put the Bench into
sucha ridiculous position as this. Was he to
decide between the School Board and the chil-
blains and blistered heel? Could the inspector
say if the defence was true or fake 1 He oould
' not. Had the roman a medical certificate
proving the chilblains and blister? No; and
she could not pay for one. In another cam the
mother appeared with • bib, in her arise, and
pleaded that, she had been obliged to convert
her boy into • monthly muse, as she could not
afford to get other 'martinet This was more
than the worthy magistrate (Kr. Novice) could
stand. He felt the wretchedness of his situation,
evidently; declared it was absurd to call upon
him to decide in such cases, and fined the
woman, who turned her boy into a nurse during
her coalmine-it instead of sending him to school,
five shillings and costa, with • threat of • distress
warred, and remanded the other Oele for
inquiry Doubtless the magistrate took the
right mums to secure friendly help for the un-
fortunate mother, but surely this is not the
way to convince the illiterate of the blessings of
education.

TIM GREAT EDUCATION QUESTION.
Now that the storm of 000treversy, whioh has been
ragtag to oar 'alumna for the last few weeks, hie
sabelded, perhaps it would not be emir to give an im-
partial rim of the whole 'abject of Resettles, sa we
feel *oddest that it le • question on TWA honest
Christien rasa are snore united than Mier liriaglaa, and
co with& they say agree to differ without quarrelling
over details.

Th. whole pantry sear to be MAIM late tiro
oomph's.; seek has its watob•word or party cry ; the
sae will bp. "sb.bbbo the =lmola ; " the itur
*ply smear sdusation la rato-paid silicas. la tho
romp ths hatter aro found tho Isithisl, sad 84011141.61,
'ay geslonalist, who wish the Cluistbus religion to ba
allisissatod from as oduatiou of the amity ; in lb,
other clamp ars the illtaalist, lierswdoialki, sad High
Uliuroluasa, who by this" Bahl. to *he isbools "raspy
wean the Cnnrsh Clatisoldwasor 'she Book al Worship."
Sat besides thaw /Prima was, then are la Yob camp
I larp saasbar of honest Obristisa moo, who ors
equally assztorw that tho alilldrea of our land should
waive a religious' sliaoshoo. say the/ differ as to the
best way to arrive at that sa& god as is would in
sag*, as well aa salsas, to ill oh the supporters of
ths Bible in schools by the ugly no.. of ilassrdotallot ;
so It la wpally mask sad ashes lo fall oh who into