The Press.
London, England, 1854-04-01 00:00:00

SPAIN.

The Madrid Gacetaof the 20th ult. publishes a
decree granting an amnesty to the insurgents of
Cuba.
It is said that the Bank of St. Ferdinand has
advanced to the Government a loan of 50,000,000
of reals at six per cent., secured on the produce o'
the Havana.

ITALY.
On the 26th ult. the Duke of Parma was stabbed
with a dagger. He died on the following day. The
assassin escaped. Some arrests afterwards took
place. The Duchess is to be Regent during the
minority of her son Prince Robert.
The old Ministry of Parma has been dissolved.
Salad is appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs;
Pallavicini, Interior. Baron Ward has been banished
for life, which has given great satisfaction.

SATIJIDAY.

The assassination of the Duke occurred in a sort
of low wine shop frequented by the lowest people.
The Duke entered the common room, and was recog-
nised by a soldier who was reading, and who imme-
diately rose and saluted him, and then sitting down
again continued his perusal. The Duke went up to
him and said, " What! you go on reading before your
prince, and seated !" The soldier replied in a low
tone, "In seeing your royal highness enter such a
place I thought you desired to remain incognito,
and I feared to show you too much respect, as that
would only attract notice." The Duke got into a
violent passion, and, after using most abusiva lan-
guage, struck the soldier a dreadful blow with his
whip across the face. The soldier then, in a fit of
exasperation, drew out his short sword and plunged
it into the lower part of the Duke's stomach. In the
tumult he succeeded in effecting his escape. The
late Duke Ferdinand Charles 111., Joseph Maria
Vittoria Balthasar de Bourbon, Infant of Spain, was
born on the 14th of January, 1823, and was, conse-
quently, only thirty one years of age. He succeeded
his father, Duke Charles 11., after the act of abdica-
tion of the 14th of March, 1849, and took the reins
of Government by a proclamation of the 27th of
August, 1849. The late Duke married, on the lOth
of November, 1845, the Duchess Louisa Maria
Theresa of Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Beiri,
and sister of the Duke of Bordeaux (Count de Cham-
bord), by whom he leaves four children. The eldest
son and present Duke, Robert Charles Louis Marie,
was born on the 9th of July, 1848.

RUSSIA.
The Emperor Nicholas, by ukase of the 16th
places the Military Academy under the supreme di-
rection of his Imperial Highness the Cessrevitsch,
the Hereditary Grand Duke.
The British Consul at Cronstadt has leftpis post ;
the French Consul is absent on leave.
The St. Petersburg Court Journal gives the follow-
ing items of the Russian fleet in the Euzine :—lt is
composed of 4 ships of 110 to 120 cannon, 12 of 80 to
88 cannon, 2 reserve ships of 80 cannon, 12 frigates
of 52 to 50 cannon, 40 smaller vessels of 10 cannon,
and 15 steamers with more or less bomb cannon.
The Russian paper adds that the sum total of Russian
cannon exceeds by 500 those of the combined fleets,
viz., 2,208.
It is stated that Prince Demidoff, who for several
years past has resided in Florence, has written to the
Emperor Nicholas, placing at his Majesty's disposal
" his fortune and his sword." The prince is the hus-
band of the Princess Mathilde, daughter of the ex-
King Jerome, and consequently first cousin to the
Emperor of the French.
Letters of the 15th ult. from Revel, on the Gulf of
Finland, state that the greatest terror still prevailed
there on account of the probability of its being born- •
barded by the English fleet. On that day the ice
had again partly broken up in the vicinity of that
town.
A letter from Warsaw states that the army of occu-
pation now in the kingdom of Poland consists of
25,000 men, who are in the fortresses and principal
towns, and of a portion of the corps of General Severs.
A despatch from Odessa states that a division of
the Russian fleet had just left Sebastopol with the
object of provisioning and reinforcing the Russian
forts on the Circassian coast. Constantinople letters
also state that, on the 13th, two steamers of the allied
fleets had come in with information that the Rus-
sians were in the act of conveying 12,000 men to
Redout Kale.

APRIL 1, 1854

certain that the Ituabian force maintained itself in Bul-
garia."
It thus appears that the Danube has been crossed
in three places by the Russians—at Ibraila by thirty
thousand men without opposition; at Galatz by fifty
thousand men, under General Luders; and now at
Oltenitza by Prince Gortschakoff.
The statements of the strength of the Russian
army must, however, he read with the remembrance
that they come mostly from Russian sources. We
learn in addition that on the 24th General Luders
commenced preparations for the siege of Alatschin.
Matschin is well fortified, and has had its garrison
lately strengthened by the addition of 4,000 men.
It is situated about thirty-two miles north-east of
Hirsova.

A despatch from Prince Gortschakoff to Baron
Meyendorff, dated Ibraila, 24th ult., confirms the
passage of the Danube by the Russians under his
command and that of General Luders, at Ibraila and
Galatz.