Aliottllautuus.

The House of Commons, or rather-certain members thereof, mindful of the horrors they endured at the naval review at Spithead in 1856; have chartered a steamer of their own to take them to Cherbourg. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company have, however, declined to be paid for the use of their ship. Members will pay 51. a head for the ex- pense of the trip.

The Queen has promoted Brevet-Colonel 'Thomas Herta Franks of the Tenth Foot to the rank of Major General "in consideration of his dim- tinguished services in command of a column during the operations in India prior to and at the capture of Lucknow." Colonel Franks, it may be remembered, marched from Juanpore to Lucknow, defeating two bodies of rebels on his road.

The Bishop of London has appointed Dr. Travers Twiss to the office of Chancellor of the Diocese of London, vacant by the advancement of the Right Honourable Dr. Lushington to the Judgeship of the Court of Appeal of the Province of Canterbury.

A report has been circulated to the effect that Mr. Alison, now at Constantinople, has been appointed Minister at Teheran. But it is at least premature. The brother of Mr. Charles Murray, our present Minister to the Shah, denies that this brother has resigned er been superseded.

Mr. Robert Lytton, the son of Sir .Edward Lytton has written a letter to the newspapers in vindication of his father. Lady Lytton, was not, it appears, taken to a lunatic asylum, but to a "private house." Mr. Lytton was in constant communication with her, who carried out the injunctions of his father and made every arrangement affection could suggest. " My mother is now with me, free from all restraint, and about, at her own wish, to travel for a short time in company with myself and a female friend and relation of her own selection. From the moment my father felt ampelled to authorise those steps which have been made the subject of so much misrepresentation, his anxiety was to obtain the opinion of the most experienced and able physicians, in order that my mother should not be

subject to restraint for one moment longer than was strictly justifiable. Such was his charge to me." Dr. Forbes Winslow and Dr. Connolly think that Sir Edward was justified in the course he has adopted, both in restraining Lady Lytton and relieving her from restraint.

The Atlantic telegraph squadron, consisting of the Agamemnon, the tenders Gorgon and Valorous, and the United States frigate Niagara, left Queenstown early on Sunday morning for the rendezvous.

The Royal National Life-boat Institution continues its useful labours. There are now in connexion with it seventy life-boats, but sixty-four more are required. Last year the life-boats saved 399 lives ; but to show that more are needed, we have only to state that in the same period 1522 persons were drowned. A life-boat and equipments costs 3001. The institution deserves the best support of the public.

The Duke of Malakoff is now recreating in the country. He passed through Birmingham on Wednesday, and, after visiting some of its lions, proceeded onward to his destination, Eaton Hall, Cheshire. Yesterday he was at Liverpool.

On Wednesday, Sir John Pakington and the other Lords of the Admiralty paid their official visit of inspection to Chatham :Dockyard.

Mr. Bright has returned to the Scottish Highlands. He arrived at the Union Hotel, Inverness, on the evening of the 16th.

Lord Macaulay has taken his departure from Holly Lodge, Brighton, for Kensington,

Sir Roderick Murchison:seems to be as indefatigable as ever. He "will, in the course of a week or two, arrive in the north upon a geological tour. His tour is likely to embrace the Counties of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, Ork- ney, and possibly, Zetland."-Jelin a' Groat Journal.

Lord Normanby had a private audience of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Tuscany on the 16th, for the purpose of presenting his letters of recall.

The King of Sweden is now reported to have recovered his health suffi- ciently to enable him to take short walks.

The King of Prussia has retired to recruit his shattered nerves and consti- t ution to Tegernsee, a straggling village in the highlands of Bavaria.

Three of the Orleans Princes are travelling on the continent. The Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres have gone to Mecklenberg on a visit to their grandmother. The Prince and Princess de Joinville are on their way to Hungary to join their sister the Princess Clementine of Saxe-Coburg. The Countess de Neuilly and the Duke and Duchess d'Aumale have taken up their quarters at Malvern.

The Count de Chambord, on a visit, has been treated with marked dis- tinction by King Leopold and his eldest son.

Madame Champagneux, the only daughter of the celebrated Madame Roland, has just died at her residence, No. 24, Rue de Pleuras, at the age of seventy-seven. She was buried on Wednesday in the Cemetery of Mont Parnasse, Paris.

The fourth son of the Sultan died on the 9th July. Throughout the whole of the earlier part of the day the rumour was general that it was Abdul Medjid himself who had succumbed, and the sensation occasioned by that belief was, as may be supposed, intense and universal.

Vice-Admiral Sir Maurice Berkeley, who succeeded to the estates of Earl Fitzhardinge, has petitioned the House of Peers praying that he may take his seat in Parliament as Baron Berkeley by tenure. This is not the first time a lord of Berkeley Castle has put in this claim. It has never been admitted nor definitively rejected, but evaded every time it has been raised. Thus William, the eldest son of Frederick Earl of Berkeley, prevented from assuming his father's title by the decision of the House in the great Berkeley Peerage case, claimed to sit by tenure. The difficulty was met by creating him Baron Segrave.

The Dundee Advertiser states that the Earl of Derby, on the recommen- dation of Mr. Henry Drummond, M.P., has placed Mr. J. B. Lindsay, Elec- trician, on the Literary and Scientific Pension List, for 1001. per annum.

A pension of 1001. a year has been bestowed by the Queen upon Mr. William Desborough Cooley, author of many critical and scientific works upon the regions of Central Africa.

The Emperor of Austria has just granted a pension for life of 800 florins to the widow of the Intendant of the Marine, Ressel, the author of several important discoveries " and the first inventor of the screw."

Mr. Robert Dalglish, one of the Members for Glasgow, has subscribed 1001. for the purchase of a tent to accommodate those who attend on Sundays the preachings on Glasgow Green, in connexion with the Abstainers' Union.

The challenge of the Americans to back their great chess-player, Mr. Paul Morpby, a young lawyer of New Orleans, against the well-known English amateur, Mr. Staunton, for 1000 guineas, in a match of twenty-one games, has been accepted by the latter, and the colitZst is arranged to commence at the beginning of September. The stakes in this encounter are by far the largest ever &pendent on the result of a mere trial of chess skill, and their magnitude, and the sort of national character with which the American press is sure to invest the struggle, will probably occasion an enormous amount of money to change hands.

The funeral car of Napoleon I is to be " restored " at Woolwich at the expense of John Bull, and presented in its renovated state to the present Emperor of the French.

The ceremonies in celebration of the 4th July at New York were varied by the introduction of the exhumed bones of President Monroe. These re- mains were escorted by the crack New York militia regiments to the City Hall where they lay in state. After the due allowance of orations had been made the bones were placed on board a steamer and sent to Norfolk in Vir- ginia.

The aVett: York Herald deliberately proposes that the French Emperor should reconquer Hayti and San Domingo, "while the Americans quietly annex Cuba. Thus both the despot and the sovereign people would do " a great thing for civilization."

A rifle carbine, loaded at the breech, and capable of being used as a pistol, the invention of Mr. Terry of Birmingham, has been tested on board the Excellent. It was fired 1800 times without cleansing, at various ranges ; and of the shots 86 per cent were hits. This must be a very valuable weapon.

Although the tendency to a high rate of mortality was checked by the fall of rain last week, the number of deaths, 1173, was not less than 100 above the calculated average. The deaths from diarrhoea decreased from 129 to 126, and those from cholera, from 13 to 4. The Court of Appeal in Savoy has confirmed the judgment of the Court at Chambery, which condemned the Princesae de Selma, née Letitia Bona. parte, and formerly Mrs. Wise (a cousin of the Emperor of the French), to a fine of 700 franca for having wounded a coachman with a pistol shot in the thigh.