The Sun.
London, England, 1854-10-19 00:00:00

SLOW COMMMUNICATION WITH THE
ARY IN THE CRIMEA.

We must again remark, with astonishment and regret.
that the Government and the public of this country, at
a moment when every thought and feeling of the nation
are concentrated on the events of the war, are no less
than 15 or 16 days in arrear of the course of events,
although ten days at the outside ought to suffice to
bring us not only telegraphic messages, but mails of let-
ters from the Crimea. It is needless for us to enlarge
on the inconvenience, of this incredible want of Post-
office arrangements, for the Ministers of the Crown,
whose responsibility is more deeply engaged in these
operations than that of any other person, are the first
to suffer from the want of a frequent and regular mode
of transmitting to this country the official correspon-
dence of the army.
Here, again, we have a striking illustration of the dif-
ference between the intentions of the Government and
the fact. It was intended, we know, as we are informed
by the Post-office circular, that there should be a regu-
lar and prompt communication between England
and the head-quarters of the army every five days.
But by some means or other, three times five days-have
now elaped since the dates of the last mails which have
reached England. Some of the French and Austrian
boats by which mails are forwarded to Marseilles or
Trieste go the round of half-a-dozen ports in the Levant,
stopping a day at each ; and it is but seldom that the
bags are transmitted direct and at full speed. Even
when Lord Burghersh was sent with the despatches re-
lating to the battle of the Alma, which were expected
with such feverish impatience by the whole country, he
started in the Fury, a vessel which could never perform
more than eight knots an hour, and was beaten by
twelve hours between Malta and Marseilles by the ordi-
nary French packet. At the present time intelligence
has frequently arrived, by way of St. Petersburg more
rapidly than by the Danube or Marseilles, so that the
Emperor of Russia has acquired, by means of the tele-
graphs now estillished between his capital and the
southern provinces of his empire, an advantage of five
or six days in the transmission of information over the
Western Powers. Circumstances might occur under
which that difference of time would be of the utmost
consequence, and every means ought to be taken to
accelerate to the utmost our correspondence with the
seat of war.—Times.
iti

NURSES FOR THE WOUNDED IN
TURKEY.

We are authorised to state that Mrs. Nightingale, who
has been for some time acting as superintendent of the
Ladies' Hospital, at No. 1, Upper Harley-street, has
undertaken to organise a staff of female nurses, who will
at once proceed with her to Scutari, at the cost of the
Government, there to act under her directions in the
English Military Hospital, subject, of course, to the autho-
rity of the chief medical officer of the establishment. Mrs.
Nightingale will, herself, select the persons who will ac-
company her, and will recommend them to the War-
office for certificates, without which certificates of
course no one will be admitted to the hospitals. After
her departure arrangements will be made for granting
certificates on the recommendation of persons to whom
Mrs. Nightingale will have delegated the duty, to such
number as may, from time to time, be forwarded to
Scutari upon her requisition. By this arrangement it is
hoped that much confusion and disappointment may be
prevented, it being obviously impossible in any hospital,
but especially in a military hospital, to admit as nurses
any persons offering themselves, without any proof or
p,),,Lietitzir.g the knowledge, experience,
° eisi tt for .luti ,o difficult anal
So respon
and c'll. 'd3'll 1 ness to submit implicitly
to the regulations. otf oen‘:centgral authority.
sible, it