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Parliament was prorogued by Royal Commission on Tuesday until the 19th of November. The event attracted no public attention, the galle- ries of the House of Lords, which had been specially prepared for the ladies, wore honoured by the presence of only two or three, and coldness and dreariness prevailed in the House.
The Council and Committee of Education, with the approval of the Bishop of London as Visitor, have elected Mr. W. Cave Thomas to the Professorship of Drawing and Pictorial Art in Queen's College, vacant by the resignation of Mr. George Scharf. The classes in Landscape Drawing continue as before, under the direction of Mr. Henry War- ren. Mr. Scharf has been elected, on his retirement from his Professor- ship as an Honorary Fellow.
The Royal Commission on Army Clothing reassembled in a committee room of the House of Commons on Thursday, after an adjournment since yesterday fortnight. The witnesses examined, principally with reference to the province of the clothing colonels and to delays in the supply of clothing under the present system, were Mr. Calvert, Colonel French, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Dolan the Army Clothier, Colonel Arthur Home, Colonel Elmhirst, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Holiday. Mr. Calvert's evidence tended to show the liability of the clothing colonels to replace- ments in abatement of their profits; Colonel French speaking to the same effect, and insisting that in the case of reductions the surplus clothing would not go into the Colonel's pocket. Mr. Ramsay cited, contra, the case of the 47th Regiment, 2150 on the books 1000 strong on the 1st of April 1857, with a large difference between the clothing allowed and that actually supplied. Colonel Home described a very tedious correspondence in which he wrote ninety-six letters to get proper supplies of caps and kits, getting blue caps instead of green, and tardy supplies of kits. He described the manner in which he had made a contracting tailor and a soldier confront each other; how he had ordered the soldier to " attention !" and pointed out that the tunic sup- plied was not sufficiently large for the chest in that posture, on which the contractor ridiculed the idea of measuring for the Army ; and said that the form required by Colonel Home was not " regulation." Colonel Elmhirst said that the tunics now used are as good in quality as can be desired, and the men can " attention " in them as well as stand at ease without bursting their button-holes.
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