MEXICO.
Intelligence from the city of Mexico is to the 30th of November. Congress was still engaged in discussing various propositions concerning the public debt, and a bill had passed both houses for regulating the interior debt, the original amount of which was about seventy-five millions of dollars, the new law, however, reduces it about one-third. It is believed that the new steps taken upon this subject will prove highly advantageous to the country.
The magnetic telegraph is in operation in the city of Mexico merely as an experiment, and gives general satisfaction. Efforts are being made to form a company for placing it from Mexico to Vera Cruz.
Accounts from the Mexican Boundary Commission to the 24th November have reached St. Louis. Mr. Bartlett arrived at El Paso on the 18th November, in advance of the main body, in thirty-three days from San Antonio. He was detained seven days to recruit the animals, and ten days by a severe snow storm. He had agreed to meet the Mexican Commissioner on the 1st November. He was accompanied by a party of young engineers as an escort, well mounted and armed, together with spies and hunters, and seven wagons with provisions, equipments, &c., forming a party of forty. On the way Mr. Bartlett was visited by five of the principal chiefs of the Lipan Indians, accompanied by warriors. The interview was friendly, but great care was taken to show them that the party was well armed.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATES OF EUROPE.
We take advantage of a moment of apparent pause in the current of European affairs to present a concise view of the political, financial, and civil condition in which the close of the first half of the nineteenth century leaves the leading states of Europe. We do this in order to furnish a standpoint from which, in the future numbers of our Monthly Record, the changes which are apparently about to take place may be observed. The present population of Europe may be estimated at 262,000,000, upon an area of 3,816,936 square miles, showing an average of 70 inhabitants to a square mile. If, however, we exclude Russia, together with Sweden and Norway, which with almost two-thirds of the area have but one fourth of the population, and are therefore altogether exceptional, the remaining portion will have 138 inhabitants to a square mile; while Asia has but 32, Africa 13, North and South America 3, and Australia and Polynesia only 1. Of this population about 250,000,000, are Christians, of whom there are 133,000,000 Catholics, 58,000,000 Protestants, and 59,000,000 belonging to the Greek Church; of the remainder there are seven or eight millions of Mohammedans, and two or three millions of Jews. Europe is now politically divided into 55 independent states, of which 33 belong wholly to Germany, and are included in the Germanic Confederation; 7 to Italy; and two to the Netherlands. Of these states 47 have an essentially monarchical form of government, and 8 are republics. Of the monarchical governments 3 are technically called Empires, 15 Kingdoms, 7 Grand-duchies, 9 Duchies, 10 Principalities, 1 Electorate, 1 Landgraviate, and 1 Ecclesiastical State.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as it is officially denominated, contains an area of 117,921 square miles, with a population at the last census of 26,861,000 (1841), which is now increased to about 28,500,000. The Colonies and Possessions of the Crown contained in 1842 5,224,447 inhabitants. The possessions of the East India Company have a population of somewhat more than 100,000,000; and the countries over which that Company has assumed the right of protection, which is rapidly changing to sovereignty, about 35,000,000 more. The political authority of the Kingdom is vested in the three Estates, sovereign, lords, and commons. The House of Peers consists at present of 457 members of whom 30 are clerical; 28 Irish and 16 Scotch representative peers, elected, the former for life, the latter annually; the remainder being hereditary peers. The privileges of the peerage consist in membership of the Upper House of Parliament; freedom from arrest for debt, and from outlawry or personal attachment in civil actions; the right of trial, in criminal cases by their own body, whose verdict is rendered, not upon oath, but upon their honor; in the law of scandalum magnatum, by which any person convicted of circulating a scandalous report against a peer, though it be shown to be true, is punishable by an arbitrary fine, and by imprisonment till it be paid; and in the right of sitting covered in any court of justice, except in the presence of the sovereign. The House of Commons, which, by gradual encroachments upon the other Estates, and especially by the prerogative which it has acquired of originating all money-bills, has become the paramount power of the state, consists of 656 members, of whom 469 are for England, 29 for Wales, 53 for Scotland, and 105 for Ireland. The revenues for the current year, according to the estimate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, amount to £52,285,000, and the expenditures to £50,763,582, leaving a surplus of £1,521,418. The national debt of Great Britain and Ireland, funded and unfunded, amounted, Jan. 5, 1850, to £798,037,277, involving an annual expenditure of more than £28,000,000, absorbing considerably more than one half of the public revenues. The military force of the Kingdom is as follows:
| Household Troops | 6,568 |
| Soldiers of the Line, in pay of the Crown | 91,956 |
| """ East India Company | 31,100 |
| Colonial Corps | 6,272 |
Making in all 129,625. The whole number of troops stationed in the United Kingdom is about 61,000, of whom 24,000 are in Ireland. The force of the British navy in Dec. 1848 is thus given in the Royal Calendar for 1849:
| Ships of | 100 or more | guns; | 750 or more | men | 26 |
| " | 80-100 | " | 700-750 | " | 42 |
| " | 70-80 | " | 600-700 | " | 45 |
| " | 50-70 | " | 400-600 | " | 39 |
| " | 36-50 | " | 250-400 | " | 68 |
| " | 24-36 | " | 250 or less | " | 184 |