The Express.
London, England, 1861-02-21 00:00:00

INDIA.

By the arrival of the Overland Mail we receive
papers from Bombay to Jan. 26, and from
Calcutta, via Bombay, to Jan. 18. There is very
little news from either place. The principal topic
is the famine. The Bombay Times and Standard
saps :
India is again subjected to the scourge. It might almost
seem as if the fable of its angry, bloody, deities were
verified in its mournful annals, disaster following disaster
to desolate its fairest regions. It is not on this occasion the
fierce fires of civil war that are enkindled, nor is it the
ce which has been so often the dreadful scourge of
Vrttilen
It is famine with its desolated fields, fugitive
thousands, gaunt emaciated forms of misery that supplicate
our compassion. How long in,leed the calamity will be
limited to famine, who can predict ? If the spring crop
foils in the Limb and North-West, se there is reason to
fear, we may certainly anticipate from the experience of
Mid, the advent of the raging pestilence ; and war too,
though not a cloud may betoken it, often follows in the
train to augment these calamities, especially if prompt
beetling measures he not adopted by the paternal care of
government, and the charities of the private citizen, to
mit*lte the sufferings of the famishing populations.
The Calcutta Gazette informs us, on the autho-
rity of the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-west
Provinces, of F. Williams, Esq., the commissioner
of the Meerut division, and of J. H. Prinsep, Esq.,
collector of Allygurh, of such distressing facts as
the following :—" Except in the tract at the foot
of the Hills, and those lands which can be irrigated
from canals or wells, the new crop has been a com-
plete failure." " Not a green blade is to be seen in
any direction, save, perhaps, half a dozen fields of
stunted crop, about as many inches as it should be
feet high." "From Anoopshur to Muttrs, from
Meerut to the South-Western boundary of the
division, the same unmitigated state of drought
exists." "The khureef crop is almost a total
failure for miles and miles ; no more than a few
scatt.-red fields of stunted jowra, bajrs, and cotton
were visible." The rubbee prospects are extremely
discouraging, the springing crop barely above the
ground, and in every instance that came under the
Lieutenant-Governor's view had a yellow sickly
appearance.
Courts-martial on the officers chiurd with in-
sulting conduct in a footsies at Cairo had been
held at Calcutta, but bad not been concluded at
the departure of the

A gunboat of a perfectly new form is shortly
expected in Paris, to be submitted to tho inspection of the
Emperor. It is compo!ed of iron plates of two centimetres
in thickness, and is proof against cannon shot. Its form is
oval, sad shot must glance off, not having any tied point
to strike. Its machinery is equally invulnerable, being
covered with • metal case which turns round when
struck. This gunboat was constructed at IA Ciotat. near
Marseilles, and is being brought to Paris by the canal of
Burgundy.

The ice him completely disappeared from the
Bound. The Cattegat sailing vessels have left for the
North des and the Baltic, and the steamers between Mi-
nors and Copenhagen, Norao, and Kiel have resumed their
merrier&

A curious incident occurred in the Italian Chain-
ben previously to the opening on Monday, a man having
coolly taken his place among the deputies without being one.
Ile was not arrested without some altercation ; and was
conveyed to the Quartos', or prefecture of police, where it
was found that he was not in his right mind, and he was
accordingly sent off toe lunatic asylum.