The Express.
London, England, 1868-02-17 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 17, 1868.

thought, or without timely opportunities of appre-
ciating its probable embarrassments and its certain
cost. It cannot be pretended that Abyssinia
was an unknown and undiscovered country
when it was resolved by our government
to make a grand experiment in corport
rili of the brilliant capacity of our double mili-
tary administration at home—complicated by the

joint but imperfect responsibility of the military
administration of an Indian presidency—for making
every mistake and inventing every difficulty that
our boundless tax-paying resources can pay for.
All this can hardly have been among the unfore-
seen contingencies of an Abyssinian campaign. Tra-
vellers had explored that country, and described it.
Was the want of water, the mortality of Spanish
mules, the necessity of passing over or through
a mcuntain chain, an unforeseen contingency? Was
the calculation that the larger the expedi-
tionary force the greater would be the cost
and the difficulty of provisioning and moving it,
one that could only occur after the event to idle
and snappish critics sitting in their easy chairs in
England Was even the embarrassment of this
uncalled for co-operation of an Egyptian army
altogether beyond the previsions of the Foreign-
office and its diplomatic and consular agents ?
Such questions as these should answer themselves.
It is perhaps wrong to take for granted that
the one predominant and almost exclusive
pre-occupation of our responsible Govern-
ment was and is to get rid of as much of
the responsibility as possible by throwing it
on Bombay. But why or how the policy of the
Viceroy of EGYPT, his relations with other
European Powers, his own designs in Abys-
sinia, sliduld not have been as accessible to
the divination of the Foreign-office as to the
Bombay Government it is not very easy for the
ignorant and impatient British public to under-
stand.

view. The house is swept and garnished, the heavy'
ledgers are open, the cash is counted, and the
counter stocked with clerks. But clients there are
none. The busy hum outside proceeds from men
going to their warehouses and shops and not
leaving them on business. Railways, the growth
of London, the enormous increase of suburban
life, the difference between our forefathers and
ourselves in social habits and business dealings,
have all tended to delay the commencement
of the City day. But the banks have for some',
reason remained steadfast to the old hours, long
after the necessity for keeping to them has ceased.
The clerks, or, as the late author of the " Treatise
" on Banking" insisted upon terming them, " the
"officers," are dragged from their homes a full
hour earlier than is needful, and having reached
their several poets of duty find themselves with-
out employment.
We are glad to note that a meeting is an-
nounced for this week to consider the pro-
priety of assimilating banking hours to
modem requirements, and of commencing
each day's business at 10 instead of 9. The work
of a banker's clerk is both arduous and exhaustive.
It demands close attention and concentrated
energy, and is but moderately paid. To lighten
their hours of labour will be to confer a substantial
boon upon a meritorious body of men, and one,
we believe, which can be granted without injury
either to banking efficiency, to commercial
interests, or to public convenience. At all events,
let the experiment be tried.

Tan Queen's Book has the character of nniver- ,
Belay, and touches feelings that are common to the
whole world. No one will be surprised to learn
that in the United States the volume has been
received with expressions of sympathy and ad-
miration, for in America her MAJESTY has ever
been the object of an almost personal re-
gard. One might look, perhaps, for leas of
such appreciation on the European continent,
where difficulties of language are as much an
impediment as difference of institutions. But
even on the continent the homely and hearty
character of the volume has won for it praise where
the literary taste is most severe. The jeuiEetonistc
of yesterday's Debats in the following observations
represents the general sentiment of the French
press :—" I intended to enjoy the luxury of criti-
" cising a Queen's work to-day, having before mo
" the two volumes recently published by Queen
" Vicrours. I said to myself that I should be
" merciful—at once respectful and indulgent.
" Who, indeed, could be severe in presence of so
" much sincerity and so much frankness 4 Never
" were books so truly livres de bonne foi '—to
" use the expression of Motrratotta. One must
" possess great rudeness—one must have a piti-
" less idea of literary justice—not to be
" disarmed by works where there is so much of
" the woman and so little of the author, nay, so
" little of the writer. There is much to be said
" of these narrations of a Queen to her people ;
de
simple and touching disclosures which may
" cause mockers to smile, but which will captivate
" and move the artless."

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

r injustice bemuse the priests are not allowed to convert the
state wheels into independent Romanist seminaries is a
cooplaint which would be deemed absurd sad frivolous
even in some Roman catholic countries. With regard to
bald tenure, the laws are the same for Ireland as for the
rest of the kingdom ; and the f►ct that the
agricultural class has had so small a share in the
late Fenian risings goes far to show that a defective sys-
tem of land tenure is not one of the substantial causes of
Irish disaffection. Abstract resolutions as a remedy for
the Irish malady are infinitely worse than useless.
The Star trusts that when Lord A. Clinton puts his reso-
lutions to the house, Mr. Disraeli and his followers will be
forced, by combined and well-regulated effort on the part
of the opposition, to show their colours—to say, once for
all, and without equivocation, whether or not they will
accede to the very moderate and cautious proposals of the
popular Irish members, whether they are ready to abolish
the ascendancy of the alien church established by law in
Ireland, whether they are prepared to take steps to secure
to the Irish peasant a permanent interest in the soil.

FOREIGN NEWS.

(THIS DAY.)