31ii5rrikilf Bag.

We have reason to believe that at the meeting of Parliament, on Thursday next, the motion that Mr. Evelyn Denison be the new Speaker, will be moved by Lord Harry Vane, and seconded by Mr. Thornoly.— Glo6e, April 24.

The Earl of Elgin set out for Paris on Tuesday, where he arrived on Wednesday afternoon. Before starting for China he was to stay two or three days in Paris and then proceed to the far East by way of Marseilles and Alexandria.

The third annual report of the Postmaster-General to the Lords of the Treasury describes in detail the working of the Post-office system in 1856, and the improvements that have been made. The number of letters delivered in the course of last year was 388,000,000, or an average of 20 to each person, in England ; 42,000,000, or an average of 7 to each person in Ireland ; and 48,000,000, or an average of 16 to each person, in Scotland. The total is 478,000,000,—an increase of 22,000,000 over that of 1855.

"Exclusive of conveyance by steam-vessels and boats, and not counting the walks of letter-earners or rural messengers, or the carriage of the mails from post-offices to railway stational, the whole distance over which mails are now conveyed within the United Kingdom is upwards of 61,000 miles per day, being about 2600 miles more than at the end of 1855."

The mails are conveyed on each week-day over 28,692 miles of railway, at a cost of 91d. per mile ; and over 22,721 miles of road in vehicles, at a cost of 10d. per mile. The revenue was 2,867,9641.,—an increase of 150,000?.; the expenditure was 1,673,666/. ; the net profit, 1,194,3881. Nearly the whole of this surplus is appropriated towards the subsidies paid to steam-packet companies carrying Colonial mails. The number of post-offices is now 10,866; 368 having been added last year. The pillar letter-boxes have been successful; and they are to be set up in Edinburgh and Dublin, and various parts of the country. Measures for accelerating the delivery of letters are in progress " One of the most important—viz, the first sorting of the country letters before they reach town—has proved highly successful; about 110,000 each day, or considerably more than one-half of the whole number, being now sorted for London districts in provincial offices." Letters are now delivered in London audits suburbs much earlier than they were formerly. The Postmaster still complains of the delays that arise from the want of an improvement in street nomenclature; but he trusts the Metropolitan Board of Works will soon adopt a remedy. "Public cooperation in adding district initials to the letters has been readily accorded. Already about 55,000 letters daily, or one-third of those posted within the London districts, are so addressed ; as are also a large number 5f letters from the country, though not in so great a proportion." • -two additional towns have been provided with day-mails to or from the metropolis. The arrival of the London mail in the far North of Scotland has been greatly accelerated, and additional communication established with some of the Western Islands. The irregularitie5 on the railways, and the refusal of some to concur in the plans of the Postoffice still cause great unpunctuality, trouble, and disappointment. The increase in the correspondence with India since the postage was reduced from is. to 6d. is from 800,000 to 1,100,000. The increase in letters to France is 200,000; in letters to the United States, 126,000. The number of newspapers that passed through the Post-office is estimated at 71,000,000; of which three-fourths bore the impressed stamp, the remainder postage stamps. No fewer than 2,400,000 letters were returned, owing to failure in the attempt to deliver them ; and from the same cause 660,000 newspapers were undelivered. The number of book-packets posted last year, exclusive of newspapers, is estimated at nearly 3,000,000. The number of Money Order Offices in the United Kingdom is 2095: there were 6,178,982 orders granted for a total sum of 11,805,562?.,7 per cent increase on the preceding year. The profit on the business was 22,6741.; "derived solely from money-orders of above 2/. each, although these orders are in a minority."

"The extension, at the beginning of last year, of the money-order system to the several stations of Constantinople, Scutari, and Balaklava, thereby affording a ready means to our soldiers and seamen of transmitting to their families at home, money, much of which would probably have been illexpended, was attended with signal success ; more than 71,000/. having been thus sent home by the soldiers and seamen, besides 35,000/. by the Army Works Corps—making 106,000/. Last May, money-order offices were opened at Gibraltar and Malta, and they have been much employed. A further illustration of the benefits of the money-order system, when rendered available to our Army, is afforded by the extent of the remittances made by this means from the soldiers in camp at Aldershott ; which during the past year amounted to more than 22,000/., made up of orders the average amount of which was only 1/. la. 4d."

Dr. Vaughan, the Head Master of Harrow, has published in the Times an interesting letter "to an officer concerned in military education." He states, that he feels "very strongly the evils of any system which necessitates the premature withdrawal of boys from public schools in order to subject them to a special and private course of preparation for the Army.' He thinks that if there be any profession for which a public school offers a salutary discipline, assuredly it is the Army." He thinks, therefore, that military boys should be retained in public schools, but without being severed from the regular work of the school. At Harrow, the military pupils have extra mathematical instruction, instead of verse composition. He thinks that the preliminary examination for commissions must either be fixed at a very low standard, or made general enough to embrace all the studies of a public school; and he advocates the adoption of the latter. At present midtarv pupils are found low in the school, since they calculate on making up tor constant neglect by cramming. Dr. Vaughan's proposal is this " Let the topics of the first examination range themselves under the most general heads of classics, mathematics, modern languages, and history; to which, if it be thought desirable, might be added some elementary trial in drawing and in the principles of fortification, to such an extent as a boy at school might be supposed capable of pursuing these two last-named subjects as an accomplishment rather than a business. Let the candidates do what they can in each of these branches of examination, it being provided that in each there be elementary as well as more advanced questions. Let the total number of marks obtained by each candidate in each subject,. as well. as in the aggregate, be publicly known, and let the order of merit decide the order of appointment to provisional commissions. From this point let that special training commence (at Sandhurst or elsewhere) which is to qualify for professional duties, and the result of which, on an examination at the end, say of two years, is to decide into which brunch of the service (if any) each individual is to he admitted."

Experiments with two rifles—the Enfield rifle' and the Whitworth or Manchester rifle—have been carried on for several days at the School of Musketry at Ilythe. Lord Panmuro and many military and scientific men were present at the closing trial. The distances from the target ranged from 500 to 1880 yards. The rifles were fired partly from a machine-rest and partly from a table-rest ; Colonel Hay using the Manchester, and Mr. Goner the Enfield rifle. The Government rifle has a grooved barrel ; Mr. Whitworth's a polygonal bore, with two turns in its length. The superiority of the latter was entirely established. In ten shots fired at 500 yards, the Manchester rifle had a superior accuracy of 1.87 of a foot ; at 800 yards, 311; at 1100 yards, 5.63; and at 1400 yards the Enfield rifle ceased to afford any data for a comparison. "In penetration the results obtained have been equally decisive the Whitworth projectile with the regulation-charge of powder going through 33 half-inch planks of elm, and being brought up by a solid oak bulk beyond, while the Enfield ball could not get past the 13th plank." It is said that the principles of rifling developed in the Manchester smallarm make it certain that rifled cannon can be made at a reasonable cost.

The Ballot, which found many strong opponents in Victoria, was, SS our readers are aware, ultimately successful. Its adoption, however, was accompanied by predictions of the fatal disasters that would arise from its use. We lately reprinted the clauses of the electoral law relating to the ballot.. Some extracts from tho Australian journals, and from the speeches of Mr. Nicholson in this country, show that it has been signally successful, and that more than one of its opponents have been converted by that success. The Melbourne Herald says--

"The polling for the Central Province came off on the 28th ultimo; when the ballot was tested for the first time in the colony, and operated in a manner which not only satisfied the expectations of its most sanguine advocates, but actually won over as converts some of those who were previously its most determined opponents, both in and out of the Legislature."

In declaring the poll at St. Kilda, the returning-officer, a determined opponent of the ballot, said—

Ho could not help bearing testimony to the favourable working of the ballot , although opposed to it in principle himself. His assistant officers joined with him in asserting that during the process of election especially in the Windsor district, there had often been less noise in a polling-booth than in a place of worship. That proved the strict propriety of the proceedings.

The Geelong Observer said " The ballot saves the people from much of the annoyance they would have suffered under the old r6gime. When party malice and individual rancour have done their work, the ballot affords a few minutes for calm refiection ; and in that few minutes, honesty, capacity, usefulness, and character, will have the victory ; and after all, the chances are in favour of the best men."

In declaring the poll at South Melbourne, the returning-officer said" I hope one day all will be in favour of the ballot, for the ballot never will be overturned. The report of its successful operation hero will go home

and strengthen the hands of the popular party in England, who are working towards the same great end."

Mr. Nicholson points out the decrease of canvassing, and the large proportion of voters that polled. "It was a remarkable fact, that in Victoria convoluting had almost ceased to exist. It was the practice there for candidates to address public meetings

such as the present, but private solicitation was all but entirely abolished. In many cases candidates had declared that they did not canvass, and that was the reason why they were popular It might be said, when. all this quietness prevailed, that there was not sufficient interest taken in the election. But what was the fact ? An election took place at Melbourne some time before the last general election ; the number of the constituency • was about equal on the two occasions ; at the first election a largo amount of money was spent by both candidates, of whom he (Mr. Nicholson) had the

honour of nominating one, and then, out of the 8000 electors but 2000 recorded their•votes ; whilst at the last election, under the operation of the ballot, out of the same number of electors, and accompanied by no noise or excitement, those who recorded their votes numbered over 5000. In South Melbourne only twelve electors failed to record their votes ; in another district a very remarkable and almost unexampled circumstance occurred, for there only one elector did not record his vote out of the whole district."

By an advertisement in another page it will be seen that the Committee of the Nightingale Fund holds a meeting. on Friday next, for the purpose of closing the subscription, and transferrmg to Miss Nightingale's trustees the sum collected. This is a hint not only to those who have already subscribed and have delayed to send in their money, but still more to those who have delayed to subscribe at all, under the common feeling that there is always time, "Climbing boys," once so familiar in the streets of London, are now unknown, and our chimneys are swept by machines. But in the provinces boys are still employed, in spite of the law. In order to secure its fulfilment, and suppress the cruel practice, some gentlemen have formed a society called the "Midland Association for the Suppression of the Use Of Climbing Boys in Sweeping Chimneys." It has a patron in Lord Shaftesbury; and its offices are in Derby, where subscriptions will be "thankfully received" by Mr. Jones the Secretary. The society intends to enter on a vigorous campaign, not only against master-sweeps who employ boys, but householders who connive at their employment.

The Royal National Life-Boat Institution continues its beneficent ope rations on our dangerous coasts. The boats of the institution have saved no fewer than seventy-seven lives in the last three months. Since its establishment in 1824, the servants of the society have saved 10,101 lives /—a strong proof of its utility, and of the claim it has upon public ouPPert At the anniversary festival of the Royal Asylum of St. Anne's Society, on Wednesday next, the Duke of Cambridge is to preside ; supported by the Duke of Wellington and a large number of Members of both Houses of Parliament. The Prince of Oude has accepted an invitation to be present.

The Bishop of London was prevented from fulfilling several engagements on Thursday by a sudden and serious attack of illness.

The health of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, which for some time past has caused some anxiety, has been sufficiently restored to admit of his Lordship's removal from his residence at Clifton to his seat, Rodborough Manor, near Stroud.

A statement has gone the round of the journals that the Bishop of Exeter was seriously ill : this morning it is authoritatively stated that the report was exaggerated. Overwork in preparing his pastoral charge had caused "a slight indisposition," which a day or two of repose has removed; and the Bishop is now engaged in his visitation.

The Yorkshire Gazette positively contradicts statements recently current that the Archbishop of York is ill : he is in London in good health.

Earl Fitzhardinge is dangerously ill, the consequence of an accident in hunting, some two months since, Major-Goneml Mathias Everard, a distinguished soldier, died at Southsea on the 20th instant. He led the forlorn hope at Montevideo, when out of thirty-two who composed the party twenty-two were either killed or wounded. He was present and active in the Walcheren campaign, conspicuous in the Pindaree and Mahratta wars, and highly praised in general orders for his conduct at the storming of Bhurtpore.

The Duchess of Ragusa, the widow of Marshal Mannont, whose posthumous Memoirs have occasioned so much sensation, is just dead.

The cause of Free-trade in Russia has sustained a severe loss in the death of M. de Tegoborski, Member of the Council of the Russian Empire, and well known as a writer on the economical statistics of Russia. He died at St. Petersburg on the 11th.

Jean Baptiste Rougee, one of the Democratic and Socialist exiles, died last week ; and was buried on Sunday, after the French fashion, in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery,. It had been intended to bury him in the Victoria Park Cemetery ; but there "procession funerals are not permitted on Sunday,"— a regulation that caused the refugees to display much wrath "such conduct is strange in a land that boasts of its religious liberty, and demands the right of sepulture in Spain." The authorities at the Tower Hamlets Cemetery were less scrupulous. So the body was borne to the grave preceded by a red flags or "l'etendard federal du genre humain," bearing an inscription, "La republique democratique et sociale" ; another red flag, bearing, in German, "The union of the Proletarians of all countries, to you" ; and a third flag, showing " Polaud smiting Russian oppression in the dust." 31. Felix Pyat delivered an oration over the grave. Jean Baptiste Rougee was formerly a hatter of Lyons. By dint of hard study, he won his degrees in the College of Montpellier and became a professor of mathematics. When the revolution broke out, he joined the party of Blanqui, suffered imprisonment for two years at Belle Isle for acts of sedition, arrived in London in 1850 an exile, and supported himself here as a hatter. Ile died of brain fever, caused by excessive study.

Tho Prince and Princess of Prussia and Prince Friedrich Wilhelm are expected to visit the English Court about the beginning of June.

There seems to be no doubt that the Austrian Envoy Prince Esterhazy hue been treated with great coldness at St. Petersburg. He is about to leave the Czar's capital, to attend his own Emperor on his visit to Hungary.

The Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian made his solemn entry into Milan on Sunday last as Governor-General.

At Berlin, a few evenings since, the King of Prussia attended the theatre to witness the production of a new tragedy. The piece proved wretchedly dull, and his Majesty, after the second act, determined to quit the house. On entering the saloon leading to his box, he saw a lacquey sitting on a chair, with his chin resting on his breast, and in a profound slumber. Turning to one of his attendants, the King remarked, "I'm sure that fellow has been listening at the door !"

The German naturalist and traveller Dr. Monte Wagner is about to undertake a scientific mission in South America, at the expense of the King of Bavaria.

The concession for a railway from Rustchuk to Varna has been granted to a number of Bulgarian merohants.

Butcher's meat continues to advance in price in Paris : beef is now 21 sous the pound.

The Canadian Parliament have voted a subsidy of 50,0001. per annum for a weekly lino of screw-steamers to England from the St. Lawrence in summer and Portland in Maine in winter. Hitherto the voyages have been fortnightly in summer and monthly in winter. An act has been passed

„sstablimhing a decimal currency from the 1st of next January. „ .

-Great wants have tech Odnintenced by the Russian Government at the port of Nan, which will render it the most important commercial and maritime establishment on the Black Sea.

The Novara Austrian frigate has started from Trieste for a voyage round the world. She carries a number of scientific men.

The St. Jarnes's Theatre was offered for sale by auction, on Tuesday. The building cost 50,000!., the ground 80001. Mr. Robins, the auctioneer, suggested that the first bidding should be 30,0001. ; but the first offer was only 10,0001., and the highest only 19,9001.—much less than the reserved prioe, and therefore the theatre is still for sale.

The Marchioness of Bute has presented to the people of Cardiff a piece of land for the formation of a public park.

Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham, which had of late years fallen into a state of decay that revealed to every passer-by what a sham lath-and-plaster "Gothic" structure Horace Walpole had created, has been recently repaired ; and the Countess of Waldegrave and Mr. Harcourt are now residing there. Last week they received many noble visitors; ; and on Friday night they gave a grand WI—the first asembly of the kind for many years in Walpole's saloons.

M. Gaudin of Paris has discovered a method of making sapphires. He lines a common crucible with lamp-black, and introduces into it equal Rortions of alum and sulphate of potash reduced to powder and calcined. He then exposes it for a quarter of an hour to the fire of a common forge. The crucible is then allowed to cool, and on breaking it the surface of the lamp-black coating is found covered with numerous brilliant points coinposed of sulphuret of potassium, enveloping the crystals of alumina obtained, i or, n other words, real sapphires or corundum. The size of the crystals is large in proportion to the mass operated upon; those obtained by M. Gandin are about a millemetre (3-100ths of an inch) in diameter, and half a millemetre in height. They are so hard that they have been found to be preferable to rubies for the purposes of watchmaking.

The Paris Academy of Sciences has been presented by M. Lartet, professor at Audi, with three fragments of the shoulder of an unknown biro], dug up in the department of the Gene. The three fragments placed end to end measured 58 centimetres, or nearly 23 inches,—about a third more than that of the albatross which of all known birds has the largest humerus; that the entire length must have been considerably more. From the ferns of the bone it would appear that this bird belonged to the same genus as the albatross. M. Lartet, however, proposes to consider it as belonging to a distinct genus, under the name of Pelagornis miocaenus.

A Dr. Dussourt has seen an agrolite fall near Colmar in France. He was walking on the bank of the Ill, when his attention was suddenly attracted by a whistling noise like that of a shot, or of a flock of birds passing rapidlythrough the air. At the same moment he saw passing at about a hundred. yards above him a black body, spherical at one end and pointed at the other, the whole measuring, as well as he could judge, from 30 to 40 centimetres (11 to 15 inches) in length, and about the thickness of a man's arm. From. the Doctor's indications, men have been busied for sonic time in endeavouring to discover this aerolite, but have not succeeded.

The French Commission appointed to consider the subject of transportation have recommended the Island of Pines, one of the group of the New Caledonia Islands, as the seat of a new penal settlement.

The New York Times states one cause of New York ships arriving at Liverpool with mutinous crew, and tyrannical officers : the Ships are manned at New York by means of a villanous system of kidnapping, and men unexpectedly find themselves at sea when they awaken from sleep caused by drugged liquor, and are compelled by the harshest treatment to do duty as seamen.

The Prussian Government has a complaint against the United States for the kidnapping of Prussians in American ports to man merchant-vessels. For some time past the Prussian Government have advised emigrants to go. to Canada or Australia—Monarchical colonies, where law is supreme—ins preference to Republican America.

The Baltimore 1?epubliean gives an account of an extraordinary and fatal duel which occurred at Winston in Maryland. The parties were fastened down by their trousers to a two-inch oak plank, and fought with bowieknives. "They fought," says the Republican, "until Dram was mortally wounded. Young Pendleton was cut nearly in pieces, and now lies in a critical position. Part of Pendleton's knife is still in Drain's head. There is no hope of his recovery. The doctors think they will both die. Drain was twenty-two, and Pendleton nineteen."

A strange auto-da-fe has been celebrated at Grasse in the department of the Var. Incited by the preaching of a body of itinerant Capuchin monks, a number of the inhabitants delivered up copies of the works of Dumas, Sue, Sand, Balsas, Thiers, Lamartine, and Michelet ; and these were burnt at night in a public place, the clergy attending and the cure chanting "Parse, Domine," while the books blazed. Some of townsfolk scoffed at the holy men who were engaged in the business.

A ship-captain, a native of Bermuda, has been found by a gamekeeper in a wood at Speke, near Liverpool, in a dreadfully exhausted state with his feet gangrened. According to his statement, he had been lying there without food for a fortnight. He was in pecuniary distress ; unable to pay his 'rent, he had wandered into the wood, and lain down ; he became so exhausted that he could not remove from the place nor even cry for help ; he ate some Una and drank water from a brook occasionally. There are-hopes of his recovery.

A Mr. Taylor, an American, has had a narrow escape at Niagara. He fell from a rock into the river, and was hurried by the rapids sense distance towards the Falls ; there, fortunately, he vas driven assainst some rocks; he clung to them' and was rescued by means of a rope-ladder let down from the perpendicular bank a depth of 260 feet.