Blandford, Wimborne and Poole Telegram. — 1876-02-11 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

NOTES OF THE WEEK.  Some wonderment has naturally been excited by the announcement of Her Majesty's sudden resolve to again appear in public. The IForb/ gives the following as the explanation of this emanation from a long self-enforced and in pularly regretted seclusion :—Princess Beatrice has now reached a marriageable age. With true maternal solicitude and consideration for public duty, the Queen, in spite of her being " physically and morally " unable to discharge the duties of a sovereign, as Mr. Disraeli publicly declared shortly befiTe his last electoral campaign, has seldom failed to honour Parliament with her august presence whenever the loyal liberality of the House of Commons has been appealed to. The last occasion on which Her Majesty opened Parliament in person was in 1871. when the marriage of the Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne was foreshadowed. The Queen paid a similar honour to Parliament in 1866, when provision was asked for the Princess Helena on her marriage to Prince Christian. With one exception (in 1867) these are the only occasions when the Queen has opened Parliament in person since the marriage of Princess Alice, when Her Majesty's absence was explained by the then recent death of the Prince Consort. It is. probable, therefore, that Her Majesty's re-appearance at St. Stephen's will betoken, among the events of the year, another royal wedding ? Some few years ago the Princess of Wales took to wearing sapphires, and a demand for sapphire parities sprang up at once. Sapphires, of course, rose enormously in value, but they have since, we believe, fallen almost to their old . price. It is said that the next stone likely to come into fashion will be the jacinth, and that, forseeing the probability of this, the leading London jewellers are " making a corner," as Americans call it, in jacinths, by buying them up and putting them by, in the serene assurance that the money thus lying idle will ultimately earn its interest and a good deal more. When the time comes at last jacinths will be no prettier than they are at present, but their value will, for the time being, be doubled or quadrupled. The return applied for by Lord Hampton in the House of Lords in 1874 of the cost of English churches has just been completed. From it we find the total expenditure in the Dioceses of England on the churches and cathedrals since 1840 amounts to nearly 25 million pounds. In the diocese of Bath and Wells the expenditure has been over £22,000 on the Cathedral ; and on the churches about £707,000. In the diocese of Exeter nearly £26,000 and £76,000 respectively. And in the diocese of Salisbury £50,574 on the Cathedral and £828,852 ss. 2d. on the churches.  Our contemporary, the Daily Telegraph, is getting delightfully sensitive. We clip the following from the Saturday's issue : Advertisements of a work written by the authors of the " Corning K—," and of a song called " The Mistletoe Rough," have appeared throurrh ina,lvertence in the columns of The Daily Telegraph. They will not he again admitted. By the above, inserted in a conspicuous part of the paper, the compilers of the work hp., e now had a better advertisement given them than 20 insertions in the advertisement columns. When will the Telegraph learn discretion iAnd yet they have a " Good-man " on its subbing staff. A domestic servant named Martha Horan has just committed suicide under somewhat singular circumstances, and the inquest has afforded a juror an opportunity to impertinently chatachise a lady and a coroner of threatening to commit her for contempt of court. This girl was in the employ of a Mrs. Garner, of Islington, and was not only strange in her manner, but dirty. This intolerable nuisance, of course, could not be endured, so Mrs. Garner paid her and sent her going. She went and threw herself into the canal. A Juror said the conduct of Mrs. Garner was censurable,as she had acted most unfeelingly and inhumanly in turning deceased out without first ascertaining whether she had anywhere to go to. The Coroner, addressing Mrs. Garner, said this occurrence ought to be a great lesson to her and other mistresses, who ought to know that much responsibility rested on them in regard to their servants. Mrs. Garner retorted, and objected to being lectured. She did not see that the matter ought to be a lesson to her. It was no business of hers to look after other people's children. The Coroner threatened to commit her for contempt of court. Of course it is only right mistresses should have a care for the welfare of their servants, but to imagine that they must put up with a dirty domestic till they can find her lodgings elsewhere, is certainly a very sure way of encouraging objectionable characters.  There is no pleasing women. Every now and again the papers are occupied with reports of cases in which unhappy young men are sued for damages because they refuse to "put up the banns." And now we have a case reported in which a young man is summoned for damages because he did "put up the banns." But this Stirling young man, by name William Dogan. did certainly offend Jane Lynn by "asking her" in church without her consent. She does not say she would not have had him if he had asked her; but it was no doubt to avoide the unpleasant quarter of an hour involved in that operation that he had her proclaimed without first asking her consent. No wonder she fainted when, attending church one Sunday morning, she heard the minister ask if any one had any objection to the marriage of "William Dogan, miner, bachelor, with Jane Lynn' servant, spinster, both of this parish." But what is it she appraises at the VO she had asked Sheriff Sconce to award her ? Is it the price of her faint, or the value of the enjoyment of having the question popped to her, an which she lost through William's precipitancy? Any way, what are the poor men to do, if they are to be sued when they do put up the banns as well as when they do not. .  -A curious idea o- f the fitness of things trasshown at a tea meeting in the East Lon lea tabernacle  last week, which is reported in another column. The old people who partook were all blind and on leaving they were presented each with a shilling—bright and new. The special attraction in a ifrw shilling to a blind person is certainly a matter for puzzling consideration.