The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-17 00:00:00

N0R701.6 :

Messrs. R. Gurdon, Mott, E. Buxton, G. Buxton, A.
Cragie, Wright, Captain S. Rogge, Henry Johnson,
Rev. Dowell, W. Vyae, and Lubbock.

PROROGATION OF PARLIAIITENT.—The prorogation
of parliament by commission, it is understood, will
take place on Saturday, the 4th of August.
The Duke of Edinburgh honoured the Duke and
Duchess of Manchester with his presence at a ball last
evening at their residence in Great Stanhope-street. A
distinguished circle were invited to meet his Royal
Highness.
Prince and Princess Christian of Schleswig-
Holstein honoured Earl Cowley with a visit at the British
Embassy, Paris, on Saturday night, after their arrival. A
grand dinner was given in honour of their royal highnesses.
It is expected that they will remain at the Embassy about
10 days. _ .

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge,
attended by Lady Geraldine Somerset and Colonel Home
Purves, left the duchess's residence in the Ambassadors'
Court, St. James's Palace, yesterday, for Cambridge Cot-
tage, Kew, for the season.
His Excellency the Spanish Minister and the
Marchioness de Molina had a dinner party on Sunday. In
the evening all the diplomatic body and some distinguished
foreigners met at the Spanish legation.
The Duke of Leinster intends to leave town
either at the end of this or early in the ensuing week for
Carton House, county Kildare, Ireland.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer writes to the
Times :—" I refrain, as a general rule, from troubling you
with corrections of reports, but I beg leave to say that I
did not state on the hustings that there was no difficulty
in dealing with the question of parliamentary reform,
which I acknowledge to be, perhaps, the most difficult of
all public questions. What I maintained was, there was
' no difficulty in the question peculiar to the conservative
party, and I argued that they were as free and as qualified
to deal with it as any other party in the state. What I
wished to express respecting Lord Derby's connexion with
• the Act of 1832 was exactly what I said this year in the
House of Commons—that the Act of 1832, if not devised
I by Lord Derby, was, at least, carried mainly by his
energy."
A deputation of the General Medical Council, i
including Dr. Burrower (ICrigland), Dr. Wood (Scotland).
and Dr. Aquino. Smith (Ireland), will wait upon Mr. Wal-
pole, at the Home-office, to-day, by appointment, to urge
the importance of carrying through parliament this session,
if possible, the measure for amending the Medical Regis-
tration Act prepared under the auspices of the late go-
vernment, for making the false assumption of medical
titles a puniahable offence.
THE IiBIIDLE GUN.-A lecture on the much
talked of needle gun was added to the programme of
entert:inments at the Royal Polytechnic Institution,
yesterday. It was illustrated by the exhibition of several
breech-loading rifles, whose history and claims were de-
' tailed by Professor Pepper, the lecturer. Although the
lecture propounds no new theory, nor gives new informs-
' tion to the close reader of the events of the day, it

compresses into an acceptable form what many have
perhaps forgotten, and numbers never knew. The guns
dealt with were divided into two classes, let, the ordinary

percussion capped rifles, and 2ndly, those fitted for self-
igniting cartridges ; and these again were capable of sub-
division into single-shot, breech-loaders, and repeating
rifles. Amongst the specimens on the table were Gilby's,
Prince's, Mont Storm, Westley Richards' (now largelyused
by our cavalry) and Sharp's, all requiring the ordi-
nary cartridge. The breech-loaders fired by self-iting
cartridges were the Prussian needle-gun (suniidel-
gewehr), lent by the War-office to the institution, and
Spencer's repeating rifle, used during the late American
rebellion with deadly success by picked riflemen. la com-
menting upon this weapon the lecturer showed a pistol he
had received that morning, patented by E. 1U ~ Iwood
before Spencer was known, but eentainin ite maim fea-
tures. Unfortunately the professor had been unable to
'obtain the gun in which, above all others, we are into-
rested—namely, SniderN, of which General Peel thinks so
highly that before his recent re-election he ordered 100,000
for our army. The specimens and explanations extended
to cartridges, self-igniting powder, bullets, and gun cotton.
The lecture will be continued until further notice. Mr.
Pepper was received with extra warmth, this being his
lest appearance arbor a severe Was.