30 DECEMBER 1865, Page 3

The Provincial Assembly of St. Petersburg, which represents chiefly nobles,

has drawn up a schedule of its wishes, which the Ber- lin correspondent of the Times calls a "petition of right." It amounts to this—that the Russian squires wish to have in their counties the independence which the peasants have in the villages. They can levy local taxes now, but they want to be allowed to control the expenditure of them. For example, they can vote a county hospital, but the State appoints the surgeons, who thenceforward laugh at them. The request seems moderate enough, bat the Government is so afraid of entrusting any power to deliberative assemblies that the nobles did not dare to send in their petition, but only adopted a report embodying its substance.