1 MARCH 1856, Page 9

Ziortilautnuo.

Tim CRIMEAN Imatrinv.—The Royal Warrant, summoning a Board of Officers to investigate the charges against Lords Lucan and Cardigan, and other officers, is signedby Lord Panmure and addressed to the Judge- , Advocate-General. It recites, that Sir Jelin M'Neill and Colonel Ted- loch were directed to proceed to the Crimea, "in order to inquire into the • whole arrangement and management of the Commissariat Department, -end to acquaint themselves with the mode by which supplies of food, forage, and any other articles, were obtained for our army there, and also to examine carefully into the system of accounting, with a view to its sim- plifieation." ; and further to " make inquiries into the alleged delay in im- ehipping and distributing the clothing and. other stores supplied for the • use ef.ourAaid army." Sir John Mthreill and Colonel Tulloch having made their report, which, together with the evidence, has beenlaid before Parlia- ment, and the conduct of certain officers having been animadverted upon in the report, and the officers having demanded a fell inquiry, the Queen, .desirous "that that the truth should be made manifest," nominates certain officers to meet, inquire, and report "whether the said officers of our . Army above referred to be or be not responsible to any and what extent for the unsatisfactory condition of our said army, or any portion thereof, noticed by Sir John Iffeill and Colonel Tulloch in their reports and the evidence thereunto attached."

The officers nominated by her Majesty are General Lord Seaton, Pre- sident, General Sir Thomas M‘Malion, General Earl Beauchamp, Lieu- tenant-General Sir John Bell, Lieutenant-General Sir William Rowan, .Major-General Peel, and Major-General Knollys. The proceedings of the Court "will be perfectly open and public."

PROTEST.—Lord Monteagle Lord Glenelg, and the Earl of Devon, have recorded a strong protest on the journals of the House of Peers against the decision of the Committee of Privileges in the case of the Wensleydale Peerage. They dissent on the ground that the Committee was only authorized to consider the questions committed to them by the House that the Committee decided, contrary to the law and usage of Parliament, on the meaning and import of a writ of summons which had never been presented to the House ; that their report is an unauthorized extension of the privileges of the Mouse; and that the adoption of the report appears the "more dangerous as a precedent and the more unjust in principle, when it is considered that a motion has been made and rejected requiring the attendance of the learned Judges, with the view of obtaining their opinion on the legal import and just construction of the letters-patent of the Crown laid before this House and referred to the Committee of Privileges."

ROYAL GEOGHAPHICAL SocurrY.—At the Monday meeting, an inter- esting paper was read by Consul Gardner, "on the Gipsies of Molda- via. They number 120,000; they are held in slavery by the Boyards, and are constantly subjected to cruel tortures. Theoretically, but not practically, they have been emancipated. They are commonly regarded as robbers and murderers ; but Mr. Gardner says he has ever found them kind, obliging, and industrious. He considers them of Indian origin; their language resembles Hindustani. Sir Henry Rawlinson concurred in the opinion that they are of Indian origin; and he sketched the course of their migration from the Indus to Europe. They arrived in Moldavia in 1428. Everywhere their dialect corresponds with the Hindustani ; and in Aleppo, particularly, they may be conversed with in that lan- guage without difficulty. General Monteith had some experience of the gipsies in Persia, and entertained very unfavourable opinions of their habits and conduct. [The gipsies of Europe have long since been traced by Grelniann to India ; whence they were probably expelled by a great conqueror. They must have been a very low carrion-eating caste.]

THE Pea= Hear:rm.—The returns of the London Registrars continue to show a very satisfactory state of the public health. In the week that ended on Saturday, the deaths of 1062 persons-641 males and 621 females were registered. In the corresponding weeks of the years 1846255, the average -number was 1200; which, if raised in proportion to increase of population becomes 1320. Hence the deaths returned last week were less fly 268 than would have occurred in the present population under the aver- age rate of mortality at this period of the year.—Begistrar-Gencrars Re- port.

It is reported that the King of the Belgians intends to leave Brussels the week after next, in order to visit Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It is said that his Majesty's sojourn will not exceed six days. Among the guests at Lord Palmerston's usual dinner-party on Saturday were the American and Netherlands Ministers.

The Speaker's banquet on Sato/day was to a mixed assembly of Members ; among whom were Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cardwell.

Sir Henry Ellis, after serving the public for more than half a century, has resigned his post of Principal Librarian to the British Museum. Sir Hamilton Seymour is obliged to lodge in a public hotel at Vienna. The other night a thief entered his apartments, and swept away his stock of linen: to Sir Hamilton there was left but one shirt, one pair of stockings, and one handkerchief. Money, state-papers, &e., were not touched. As an instance of the inconvenience of lodging our envoys in public hotels, it is stated that the very next room to that occupied by the British Minister for his salon de reception was long tenanted by a Russian Prince, who might not have been above the meanness of listening. The Manchester Er,aniiner states that Mr. Bright's medical attendant has prohibited him "from attending to business of any description for some months to come."

Instead of difficulty in obtaining men for the Navy at the present moment, as is usually the case at the commencement of the season., there are actually more applications than there are vacant berths. There is some difficulty in obtaining petty officers.

The General Screw Company have received orders to prepare immediatel four of their largest steamers to convey men and horses from Southampton to the East.

The Admiralty has notified that officers of the Navy on service are not to wear beard or moustache—the seamen are required to be clean-shaved, and the officers should set a good example.

Messrs. John Scott and Sons, of Greenock, have launched the first of six mortar-boats ordered by Government : these small vessels are of immense strength. Two gun-boats have been launched at North Shields.

It is reported that a camp is to be formed on Penenden Heath, near Maidstone; to be occupied by 20,000 troops, cavalry and infantry, in the summer.

Leverrier believes that there are very many small planets between Mars and Jupiter ; and he expects that a hundred will be discovered before the year 1860.

According to the indepe.lidanee Beige . the Communist Republic of leans, established at Nauvoo is in a state of dissolution. M. Cabot, the President, has quarrelled with his people, who dare to question his acts ; and he medi- tates a coup d'etat to put down "ungovernable men, plunged in vice "—by a new constitution he is to have absolute power.

Apark for New York, of 600 or 700 acres, is to be formed in the centre of island sland on which the city stands.

Mr. Yardley has made his report to the Board of Trade on the loss of the Josephine Willis. • He ascribes the disaster chiefly to excusable error on the partef Mr. Ray, the thief officer of the Josephine 'Willis. Captain,Robert- son . not agreeing in this view, has also sent in a report. He says that the collision arose from the chief 'officer's "wrongful act and default." On other points the two gentlemen agree—especially in condemning the impro- per light used on board the Josephine Willis ;• in thinking that the master of the Mangerton had reason to believe his ship in danger, though he would not desert the wreck and run his vessel ashore -, in condemning the conduct of the survivors of the crew of the Josephine Willis, and praising the young seamen Anderson and Newham ; and in declaring the boats of both ships to be in a most improper state and positions for use in emergencies.

The English schooner Howard Primrose has been wrecked on the bar of the Tagus. A Government steamer left Lisbon to give assistance and re- turned with a statement that the whole crew had perished. After this, nine gallant Portuguese mariners, from the fishing-port of Fargo d'Areoa, went to the wreck and rescued the people who were clinging to the rigging. The English merchants will take care to see these brave men rewarded.

Constantinople is said to be on the eve of a financial and commercial crisis. The prices of goods have fallen, and trade is paralyzed ; meat and flour, wholesale, have decreased in value one-half—retail, the juices are as high as ever. A disease among cattle prevails throughout the reurkish em- pire.

There is a movement in the Eastern States of America to effect a general rise in the fares and rates of carriage of the railways. In consequence of competition, the charges have become so unreasonably low as to be unremu- nemtive to the shareholders. In the Western States, railways began with remunerative rates, and have steadily maintained them.

Almost at the last hour—after the usual barriers had been erected on Sa- turday afternoon preparatory to the execution on Monday morning—Corri- gan, who murdered his wife, received a reprieve. The Judge and Jury thought that he must have acted under the influence of temporary madness ; and the Home Secretary considered that a life of imprisonment would meet the requirements of the case.

Captain Howe Kent, of the Fourth Lancashire Militia, quartered at Newry, has lost his life from the effects of poison sent by an apothecary in mistake. One draught prescribed had been properly compounded ; in sending for a second, Captain Kent forgot to forward the prescription.

The labouring people of Puteauz were observed to be repeatedly intoxi- cated, and empty wine-bottles were found in the fields and on the roads. An inquiry was made ; and it was found that some labourers, instigated by a discharged gardener, had cut a subterranean passage to a gentleman's wine-cellar, and that no fewer than 720 bottles of the finest wines had been abstracted. The gardener and some of the dishonest topers were arrested.

While we have had such variable weather—spring or summer one day, and sharp frost the next—in the United States the winter has been the coldest known for many years, with no break in the inclemency of the sea- son since the 26th December. Snow is lying thick on the ground and ice covers the waters, in districts to the South where such phenomena are ge- nerally unknown. Several attempts have recently been made to blast the rocks in the Da- nube at the "Iron Gate " ; but, apparently, they have not been very suc- cessful.

A number of Bashi-Bazouks have been killed and more hurt, while many horses were destroyed or maimed, by the fall of a large wooden shed used as a barrack at Constantinople. The Bashis were in the habit of cutting away portions of the timber supports of the building for fire-wood; and they con- tinued this very original method of getting fuel, till one night the shed. tumbled in on them.