311intllauratto.

Our readers may recollect that the many discussions in the House of Lords on the subject of the Militia resulted in the determination of Government to offer those men who had enlisted before the 12th May 1864 —that is, under Lord Derby's Act—the alternative of a bounty of 11. on their reattestation, or their discharge. According to the following statement in the Daily News, the consequence has been an alarming num- ber of discharges.

"On Friday last, these conditions were explained to the First Somerset Militia stationed at Plymouth ; and of this regiment, which is said to be one of the finest corps of embodied Militia in the kingdom, 414 men out of 500 took their discharge, and started by railway for their native county. On Wednesday last, about 500 men of the West Kent Light Infantry claimed to be released from duty, on the same grounds as those set forth by the First Somerset Militia. The North Durham have lost 770 men out of 800 during the past week. At Woolwich, the Hampshire Ar-

tillery demanded, on Friday last, their discharge in a most disrespectful manner on parade. Of the Leicestershire Militia, 450 have -obtained their dismissal, and only 120 of these have been reattested under the new act. The Suffolk Artillery have but 40 men left out of 130 that mustered at the Landguard Fort on Thursday last. The example set at Ply mouth by the First Somerset Militia has been followed both by the South Devon Regiment and Devon Artillery in the same garrison; and to such an extent that the Major-General commanding the district and gar- rison has great difficulty in mustering men sufficient for garrison duty. Be- sides the Hampshire Artillery Militia, who asked for and obtained their discharge on Friday at Woolwioh, the Monmouthshire Militia, doing duty in the same garrison, in like manner demanded to return to their homes during the early part of last week, and the regiment is not now one-fifth its former strength.'

The statement respecting the Hampshire Militia Artillery is not quite accurate. Lord Panmure's letter was read to the men on parade on Thursday sennight ; the men were drilled the same evening ; next day they cleaned the barracks, and on Saturday they paraded, mounted guard, and did all their duty "in the most exemplary manner." They were then paid, and those who declined to be reattested went home. The regiment, never three hundred strong, still musters 120 men. In the North Gloucester Militia, 227 out of 403, who had been sworn in be- fore the 12th May 1854, were reattested last week. The regiment has given 170 men to the line, and now musters 400 rank and file.

The Royal Bucks Militia seems to have lost few men ; mainly in con- sequence of the liberality of the Colonel, Lord Carrington.

Nearly 300 men of the Northamptonshire Militia have left.Dublin for England, to be disembodied.

The Third Regiment of Staffordshire Militia has lost nearly three- fourths of its strength. Out of 800, doing duty at Newcastle-under- Lyne, only 260 remain. In the West Essex Militia, 200 out of 392 declined to be reattested.

The Longford Rifles, 440 strong, volunteered last Saturday, to "go anywhere " if their officers would go with them. Colonel Musters, the commander, said he would lead them wherever they would follow.

The late Minister of War issued a commission to Captain Craigie, R.N., Colonel Tulloch, and Mr. A. Stewart, to inquire into irregularities in the transport of stores to the East. It was alleged that certain iron bedsteads were shipped in the Manilla without legs, the legs being sent on to Balaklava in the Robert Lowe. The Commissioners have discover- ed no proof that there was a deficiency of legs ; it appears to have been merely a surmise on the part of the shippers that too many legs had been placed on board one vessel, and that therefore there must have been a de- ficiency in the other. They have also investigated the statement " that the Robert Lowe transport conveyed a quantity of medical store*, destined for Scutari, over which were placed cylinders of powder and other things destined for Balaklava " ; and they report that this statement is entirely unfounded. It was shown by a drawing of the part of the ship in which the cylinders were, that no medical stores could have been placed beneath them. The Commissioners have also obtained ample proof, that in the case of the Prince, the shot, shell, and gunpowder, were not placed above the medical stores; the fact being, that the shot and shell were placed on board before the medical stores. These stores might have been landed " without any difficulty during the thirty hours the Prince lay at Con- stantinople ; ' but the captain, anxious to get on with the troops, did not examine the cargo book, and did not know where the medical stores were placed. The Commissioners add to their report several useful sugges- tions ; among them this- " That the usual permission in the chaster-party to employ lumpers in loading the ship be so far qualified as to insure a portion of the crew being present ; and that no transport or hired vessel be considered on pay' until the master, chief, or second officer, and a proportion of the crew who are to go to sea in the vessel, have joined. By this arrangement, so many persons on board would be cognizant of the position of the cargo, that 'no difficulty could arise as to where any part of it was stowed ; whereas, owing to the changes which took place among the officers and men of the Robert Lowe and the Prince previous to sailing, it appears doubtful whether any one on board knew accurately where the stores intended for Scutari were placed."

Extract from a letter received in this country from Moscow respecting the treatment of English prisoners in Russia-

" Since that time we have received a letter from an Englishman of great respectability near Veronego, telling us that sixty English soldiers, prisoners of war, are at present in that town, and that they are in a deplorable con- dition from want of hats, boots, and clothes. He adds, that thirty more wounded soldiers are expected, and he begs us to collect a sum of money for their use in Moscow. We have done so. They will receive from the Eng- lish here 843 S.R. today. We shall be able to add a little to this, perhaps, in a few days. Every one contributes most gladly, but you will see that we cannot repeat this again. We all feel that the present want of our soldiers arises from the neglect of the officials of the Russian Govern- ment. No one can suppose that the Emperor himself would permit it if he knew it." [It has since been ascertained that the subscription was ample— for the present.] The Home Office has issued a circular, addressed to the authorities of the North-country borough; respecting the inadequacy of their police force. While inefficient provision is made to check ordinary crime, the civil force alone is nearly powerless in the event of any disturbance of the public peace. There should be a sufficient force to protect life and property, and, with the aid of special constables, to preserve the peace; and recourse should never be had to a military force unless in cases where " the civil power alone, duly organized for the purpose, is unable to maintain the public peace " ; when it should be called in, not as a sub- stitute, but as a support for the civil power. As the Government "feel it necessary to discontinue, as far as possible, the practice of posting small detachments of troops in various parts of the country, their with- drawal renders it more important that an efficient force should be main- tained." Sir George Grey requests that the attention of the Town- Councils be called to the subject, and prompt measures taken to place the police force on a satisfactory footing.

Some time since a meeting at Manchester adopted an address to Prince Czartoryski on the reconstitution of Poland. The Prince, in acknow- ledging the address, expresses his firm conviction, that neither a solid peace nor free trade can be secured—that neither Europe nor Russia can be relieved from the heavy burden of taxes and the expenditure of men and blood—unless Poland be restored to what she formerly was, "a bulwark for Germany and Europe against the preponderance and encroach- ments " of Russia.

Another letter on the Handcock and Delacour case has appeared in the newspapers. Mr. W. Kelly, the brother of Mrs. Handcock, writes to appeal against the assumption—which, he says, there is not a shadow of evidence to prove—that the boy Delacour was the son of Mrs. Handcock. He considers that her anxiety for the boy is more attributable to "the perversion than the true working of maternal affection." He admits that for some years before her death, difference; but altogether of a pecuniary nature, interrupted that intimacy 'which ought to subsist among near re- latives.

It may be recollected that Sir Charles Pasley made a speech anent " special correspondents" at the dinner given by the East India Com- pany to General Vivian, on the 10th March. As his speech excited some disapprobation among the guests, and led to comments in the journals, and as it was not accurately reported, Sir Charles has forwarded a report to the newspapers. In doing so, he does not blame the reporters, but says that he is only surprised that they were able " to make anything at all" out of his "rapid and offhand" speech. The principal passage is the following- " Had special correspondents of all the journals of that day been allowed to accompany. every division of the British army in the Peninsula, by their graphic descriptions of the sufferings of that army after the battle of Talavera, and of its condition after the battle of Buaaco, though both these battles were glorious victories, they would have raised such an outcry against our late illustrious Commander-in-chief as would have put a premature end to his victorious career, and compelled the Administration of that day to make an ignominious peace with France. But Bonaparte, now known by the name of Napoleon the First, would not in that case have rushed into a new war with headlong fury, as lie did after the peace of Amiens, but would have waited with patience, and for years if necessary, until John Bull, impatient of taxes in time of peace, had dis- banded the embodied militia and reduced the regular army to one-half, or perhaps less, of its formidable war establishment. Thus biding his time until we had become entirely defenceless, he would, without declaration of war, have lauded an army of 100,000 men on the coast nearest to the metropolis, which nothing could have resisted ; and thereby having humbled England— at that time the only obstacle to his views of universal empire, which he aimed at with as much ambition and much greater resources than the _Em- peror Nicholas does now—he must have succeeded, and the present-genera- tion of Englishmen would now be the slaves of France." (Cheers and counter-cheers.)

Sir Charles Fitzroy, late Governor-General of Australia, has arrived in London.

The Duke and Duchess of Brabant are•performing the modern grand tour : they have been in Upper Egypt, and at the last advices were about to leave Lower Egypt for a visit to the Holy Land.

The Hereditary Princess of Saxe Meiningen, daughter of Prince Albrecht of Prussia, died in childbed on the 30th ultimo, in her twenty-third year.

The Manchester Guardian announces the death of the late Miss Brenta', the authoress of "Jane Eyre," who had but recently married the Reverend Mr. Nichols. She died on Saturday last, at her father's house, at Hawarth in Yorkshire ; aged thirty-eight. She was the sole survivor of a family of six ; three of whom, under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, are known in the world of letters.

The late. Bight Honourable James Grattan bequeathed no less than 88001. to various mical charities in Ireland.

A departure from "routine" by Lord Panmure is a subject of complaint by the London shipowners. Two transports were required .by the Govern- ment ; Messrs. Baines and Co., of Liverpool, sent in a tender, but it arrived after the hour advertised, -and the Transport Board could not receive it. Messrs. Baines went to the Minister of War with their tender; he thought it peculiarly eligible, and on his own responsibility accepted it. The ship- owners of London call this unfair ; and the Times aides with them, judging from what is at present known.

The Queen has ordered her biscuit-bakers, Messrs. Hill and Jones, of Jewry Street, to forward to Lady de Redcliffe, for the use of the hospitals in the Black Sea, a number of cases of their best biscuits, with other medical com- forts, as jams, jellies, raspberry vinegar, lemon and otherayrups.

The Laureate Quintana has been "crowned" at Madrid with great pomp. The King and Queen were present ; the cer emony was performed in the Senate-house ; and the Queen herself placed the crown of laurel, set in gold, upon the poet's head.

An anecdote from Vienna forcibly reminds us that Lord John Russell is no longer in a free country. An inferior police spy in the Auatrien.capital

the other day sent in this report to his superiors—" Lord John Russell has i

walked arm in arm on the glacis with Prince Gortschakoff." When this astounding fact got abroad, the Funds didn't rise.

Thanks to the electric telegraph, Lord Dalhousie, while sojourning in We Neilgherries, can receive communications from Calcutta and return answers in twelve hours. When Lord William Bentinck sought health in those mountains in 1834, a month elapsed before an answer on any subject could be received at Calcutta from the Governor-General. It is said that Ceylon will ere long have an electric telegraph stretching across the island.

"The Austrian Government," says a letter from Munich, of the 26th, "is endeavouring to draw towards Hungary the strong tide of German emigra- tion, which has been so long flowing towards America ; and is offering great facilities and considerable advantages to such Germans as may come and take up their residence in Hungary, and embark in agricultural pursuits. The climate of that country is exceedingly fine, and there are millions of acres of ground which only wait for the labour of the agriculturists to be rendered highly productive."

The Sultan has refused his consent to the scheme of M. Lesseps for a canal through the Isthmus of Suez, on account of its costly and probably impracticable nature. There is a talk of uniting Lisbon and Oporto by an electric telegraph, and of joining Spain and Portugal in the same way.

According to recent returns there is a very great falling-off this season in the production of beet-root sugar in France.

The value of the exports from Archangel to this country last year was 658,1981.

The Austrian Ministers of the Home and Foreign Departments propose to abolish all quarantine establishments between Austria and Turkey.

Mehemet All Pasha's daughter was so pleased with the strains of the band of the Tenth Hussars, who played in the streets of Cairo, that she sent b0/. to be distributed amongst them and a shawl for the bandmaster.

The Wanderer of Vienna relates the 'following anecdote. " A Jewish banker of Frankfort, while proceeding to Vienna by railway not long since, fell into conversation with a gentleman of very pleasing manners, who was in the same carriage with him ; and so delighted was the banker with his new acquaintance, that he offered to give him a letter of recommendation to his daughter, who was well married in Vienna, and might be of service to him. The gentleman thanked him, and, with a smile, said—'I also have one of my daughters married at Vienna, and she has made a very tolerable match.' 'Pre may I presume,' said the banker, 'to ask the name of her husband ? " It is the Emperor of Austria,' was the answer; the gentleman being Prince Maximilian of Bavaria."

CRYSTAL PALACE.—Return of admissions for five days ending 5th April, including season-ticket-holders, 7963.