The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

PRUSSIA.

The. revelations connected with the Potsdam
despatch robberies have been the only matters of any
interest during the week at Berlin. An explanatory
article in the New I Prussian Gazette of Tuesday
characterises the accusations brought against General
Gerlach and Baron Manteuffel as abominable fate!-
hoods: they were the victims of robbery; and "it is
too. much," concludes the Gazette, "to be first
robbed and then suspected." The investigation Is
still taking plaze, and one result obtained is that the
statement ,that the French and English embassies
obtained possession of some of the stolen papers Is
utterly unfounded.

~111M.'

MARCH 29, 1856.

A seizure of twenty-four cases of firearms, entered
as ironware, and imported from Belgium, has taken
place on the premises of a transport agent at Berlin.
Rumours were rife of a change of Ministry, and of
the resignation of one important member of the
present Government.
RUSSIA.

The Emperor of Russia has left St. Petersburg
for an excursion into Finland. His route will be by
Helsingfors, Abo, Tavasthous, and Kekholm. The
Emperor, it is believed, will inspect the coast
defences.
At St. Petersburg every anticipation was in favour
of peace. The construction of railways was seriously
occupying public attention, commercial companies
are forming for facilitating the navigation of the
Volga and the Dnieper, while canals and steam nevi•
gation on all the rivers were regarded as objects of
the first necessity for Russia.
The new levy of conscripts in Poland had been
postponed till after Easter.
A memorial addressed to the Emperor by the
Polish nobility praying for the institution of a Polish
university at Warsaw, and for permission to use the
Polish language in all the schools in Poland, was
returned to the deputation unopened.
A letter from Nicolaieff, in the Moniteur de la
Flotte, gives some details of what is going on at pre-
sent at that place : •

Two days back a commission; composed of five persons,
and presided over by one of the heads of the Board of Ad-
miralty, arrived here front St. Petersburg charged with the
task of taking an inventory of all that the dockyards and
arsenal contained. It was received in due form by Captain
Schigir, of the Russian navy, formerly secretary to the
Board of Admiralty of the Black Sea, now dissolved, and
at once commenced its operations. The brand Duke
Constantine is, it is said, to arrive here in a few days to
inspect the proceedings of the commission. The mate-
riel lying in this establishment, considered capable of
being turned to account, is to be transported to the
Baltic, after having been classified and duly marked down
in the books of the commission, article by article.
Already all the utensils for manufacturing gunpowder
and the materials from the artillery depot have been
loaded on carts belonging to the military baggage train,
and are to set out without delay. The navy school for the
sons of the nobility, the school of maritime engineers, and
that of the naval artillery, are already evacuated. Similar
measures are to be applied to Kherson. That port,
though shorn of its former splendour, still contains some
fine establishments belonging to the imperial navy, which
are now to cease to exist. The commission has received
orders to proceed there, and to include that place in its
labours. In addition, in order to correspond with all
these measures, the defences and arsenals of Otchakoff,
Ovidiopol, leraspol, and Vosnesensk, and other fortified
points of that zone established to co•operate with the idea
in virtue of which Sebastopol and Nicolaieff were created,
are about to be notably diminished. No one can precisely
say what Nicolaieff will become after its being thus aban-
doned by the war establishments. It is said that, in spite
of the representations of Odessa, it will he declared a free
port, in order to attract there the trade of all nations. It
is also said that a university is to be established there for
the young men of the rich families of the Taurida.
Already, the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg has
proposed to establish there an astronomical observatory
of the second class, and a meteorological one of the first,
the country being exceedingly favorable for such establish-
ments.