atistrIluntuno.

Ministers seem disposed to reform the Army administration in all di- rections : the same week in which it is recorded that "the Guards paraded without stocks" at Scutari on the Queen's Birthday, Mr. Sidney Her- bert, Secretary at War, issues a circular and royal warrant, dated June 6, lbolishing the Clothing Colonels. By this warrant, "the Colonels of the respective regiments will in future receive a fixed annual allowance in lieu of deriving any pecuniary emoluments, as heretofore, from the off- reckonings." The payments will be as follows : Grenadier Guards, Cold- streams, Scots Fusileers, 1000/. per annum each ; First Dragoon Guards, 8001.; other Dragoon Guards and Dragoons, 4501.; First Regiment of Foot, 12001. to be reduced to 1000/. next vacancy ; the other Regiments of the Line and West India Regiments, 600/. if appointed before. the 1st June 1864; but if appointed subsequently, 500/. per annum.

"In adopting this mode of payment, which is in accordance with the principle which ought to regulate the issue of all public money, and will put an end to much misrepresentation to which the Colonels of Regi- ments have been unjustly exposed," Mr. Herbert is anxious that the change should not injure the officers affected by it; and therefore he is ready to make compensation for losses not reimbursed by the profits of former years, assuming the rates of profit to be those laid down in the Royal warrant. "The clothing, accoutrements, and appointments, will in future be provided by the Colonel, the public only paying the cost price of such articles."

Lord Howden was to depart from Madrid on the 30th May. It was understood that "an important command in the East" has been offered him. Mr. Otway remains as Chargé d'Affaires.

Another Colonelcy, that of the Eighty-fourth Regiment, has become vacant by the death of General Sir Loftus Otway.

The expedition sent out to the White Sea consists of the Eurydice, 26, Captain Ommaney ; the Miranda, screw, 14, Captain Lyons ; and the Brisk, screw, 14. They had all passed Lerwick, in the Shetland Isles, on the 27th May. The Mariner, 12, sailing-sloop, Commander John- stone, was to leave Plymouth, for the White Sea, on Thursday.

The Honourable and Reverend Horace Powys, a younger brother of Lord Lilford, has been selected to fill the vacant see of Soder and Man. He is said to be High Church in matters ecclesiastical, but Liberal in politics.

The mortality of London is still slightly in excess of the calculated estimate. The number of deaths last week was 1090, the calculated average being 1007; the excess, therefore, is 83. Diseases of the epi- demic class show a tendency to become more fatal ; the number of deaths from this cause being 97 above the average. Measles, scarlatina, whoop- ing-cough, and typhus, are the particular cases specified.

The Earl of Rowe, as President of the Royal Society, held a conversazione on Saturday evening, which was very numerously attended.

Sir William Molesworth had a general dinner-party on Saturday ; and Lady Molesworth held an assembly in the evening.

Last week the Duke of Devonshire was attacked by paralysis, at Chatsworth; but not so seriously as to disable him from coming to town in order to secure the best medical advice. When he arrived at Devonshire House, he was attended by Dr. Ferguson and Mr. J. Nursey. On Saturday and Sunday it was reported that the patient was "going on favourably " ; but on Wednes- day the journals stated that he continued "very seriously indisposed."

Chevalier Bunsen's son, the Reverend H. G. Bunsen, Vicar of Lilleshall, Shropshire, and domestic chaplain to the Duke of Sutherland, has been ap- pointed Lecture-Secretary for the Church Missionary Society in the diocese of Lichfield.

The Countess de Neuilly, late Queen of the French, who returned from Spain by way of Germany and Belgium, arrived at Dover, from Ostend, on Thursday evening, en route for London. She was accompanied by the Prince de Joinville.

The Emperor of Austria has notified his marriage with the Princess Eliza- beth of Bavaria to the Emperor of the French, by a letter presented by Baron de Hubner.

Admiral Baudin died at Paris on Wednesday morning, after a short ill- ness. One of his sons is Secretary to the French Embassy in London.

Dr. Stanger, one of the survivors of the ill-fated Niger expedition, died at Port Natal, on the 21st March. He was Surveyor-General of Natal until 1851, when ill health compelled him to resign.

Mr. Everett has resigned his post as Senator of the United States, on ac- count of physical infirmity.

Through Mr. Waddington, Lord Palmerston has addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Privy Council Committee on Education, calling his attention to one great fault in the system of instruction in the schools of the country -bad writing. "The great bulk of the middle and lower orders write hands too small and indistinct, and do not form their letters; or they sometimes form them by alternate broad and fine strokes, which make the words diffi- cult to read. The handwriting which was generally practised in the early part and middle of the last century was far better than that now in common use; and Lord Palmerston would suggest that it would be very desirable that the attention of schoolmasters should be directed to this subject, and that their pupils should be taught rather to imitate broad printing than fine copperplate engraving."

A Shields sailor, writing home from Callao, under date April 18, says that an English frigate had just taken a Russian seventy-four into sport there. [It may be asked where this Russian seventy-four came from ?] Ho also says that a double-banked Russian frigate accompanied his ship up to Callao ; that there were two English and two French men of war in the harbour ; and that one ship of each nation left the port to wait upon the Russian fri- gate, should she deem it advisable to leave the port.

The Vicar of Peterborough has commenced a system of open-air preach- ing, and he announces his intention to persevere in it so long as the state of the weather permits.

The Norwich Court of Guardians have by a very large majority rejected a petition submitted to them by the Society for Promoting the Better Observ- ance of the Sabbath, praying the Legislature to close public-houses on Sun- days, except to lodgers and bona fide travellers.

The number of oxen, sheep, calves, and pigs, conveyed on the railways of the United Kingdom in 1853, amounted to 6,732,074; the tolls for their car- riage being no less than 361,479/.

"Sitiens" informs the Times that he has tested the quantity of beer sold by six publicans in the neighbourhood of the New Cut, Lambeth, as "a quart' : one gave imperial measure, but the other five all gave one-fifth of a pint or 10 per cent short measure.

A number of London Policemen, volunteers, are to go to Constantinople to assist the Commissariat department. They are to receive a bounty of 121. and a stipend of 4s, a day.

An extraordinary calculating girl has been discovered in a school at Darvel in Ayrshire,-Margaret Cleland, daughter of a shoemaker : she is between eight and nine years of age, and she multiplies great numbers mentally with astonishing rapidity.

The collection of manuscripts made by the late Sir William Betham many years Ulster King-at-Arms, has been sold by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson. The 198 lots produced nearly 900/. Many of the papers were bought for the British Museum.

There is a very "Irish" lighthouse at Raughly O'Beirne, on the most dangerous part of the coast of Donegal-it has been erected for some years, but never lighted !

On Tuesday last, on the estate of D. A. Davies, Esq., M.P., a battle took place between an old and young rabbit on one side, and eight or nine young crows on the other; the rabbits defending themselves gallantly for nearly two hours and a half, and not attempting to burrow. At length the crows succeeded in killing the young rabbit., and then took flight, leaving it dead on the ground ; while the old rabbit returned to its hole, evidently in a very weak and exhausted condition.-Carmarthen Journal.

A letter from St. Petersburg states that the officers of the Imperial Guard gave a grand dinner to Mademoiselle Rachel on the occasion of her approach- ing departure. One of the officers proposed as a toast, "To our meeting in Paris! where we shall drink champagne to the health of the great artiste." To which Mademoiselle Rachel- replied, " Champagne is very dear, gentlemen-for prisoners."

The new English Protestant chapel in the Monbijou Palace at Berlin was opened on Sunday last. The King not only gave up a wing of the palace for the use of the English, but paid all the expenses of converting an apart- ment into a chapel, and of putting the place into proper repair ; while Lord and Lady Bloomfield provided the greater part of the funds required for the purchase of an organ and other requisites.

A motion was made, yesterday, in the Court of Chancery, by the Attorney- General, for a new trial in the matter of the great Manchester will case, on the ground that the verdict at the Kingston Assizes was against the evidentee, and that Baron Parke misdirected the jury. The case is adjourned til next week.