The Express. — 1866-01-31 (London, England)

MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS.  The Times expeots the extreme radical party in the United States to protest against the late orders of the Freedmen's Bureau, ordering, in the Case of Georgia that the negroes, when sufficient wages are offered, shall make contracts for labour, and undertaking to ensure the execution of these contracts, when duly made, by compelling the blacks, if necessary, to perform their work, but their reclamations are likely to be disregarded. Taking warning by our experience in Jamsics, the United States under some system or other will exact involuntary labour from the negro, a course from which our own Watt Indian colonists were so rigorously debarred. The Times tells the manufacturers of Lancashire that the true substitute for the government mistime in the regulation of the Indian cotton supply which Mr. Barley demands, is to establish agencies there themselves—to introduce more perfect methods of cleaning and preparing the raw material, and to give the native cultivators an assuranoe of orders for the next season. If it be not worth their while to do this, how can they expect the government to undertake the risk—for nothing less would suffice—of guaranteeing to the ryots a sale for produce which may prove wholly unsaleable! Beyond favouring in every legitimate way free communication between all the classes interested in it, and adjusting equitably the burdens on laud, neither the home nor the Indian govern. ment have anything whatever to do with it. The Daily News comments upon the want of nursed in Ragland, and urges that a system of skilled unrsing should be practised in connexion with every workhouse in the country. At present the hospitals themselves, which are to be the training field, are as yet uneupplied ; and the managers of the Nightingale Fund are overwhelmed with applications from hospitals, workhouses, the new village hospital', and schools and homes. Their former pupils are scrambled for, and every one of them is well paid, in proportion to her demerit,. Thus the workhouses depend on the training schools, and especially on the one which bears Florence Nightingale's name. Till those institutions send out trainers to conduct other schools the supply must run miserably short of oar needs. When the new St. Thomas's Hospital, the school of the Nightingale Fund, is opened, scope will be afforded for a much larger attendance of practitioners, and there are promising indications in various quarters as to the prospect of women undertaking, at length, their part in the care of the health of the country. . _ .  The Daily News thinks it impossible that the country should indorse the act of offended authority on the part of the Admiralty, by which they have cancelled the order given to Captain Coles for allowing him the opportunity of inspecting ►nd advising upon she plans for • sea-going turret ship, on account of his alleged attacks in the public pure upon the officers in the department. No offi dal jealousies and suseepubilities can be permitted to deprive the nation of the benefit of hiving an incalcul►bly important invention tested under the eye of the inventor himself. A perusal of the documents in the new Italian " Green Book," the diplomatic record of the year, leads the Post to reflect on the change which has taken place during the last 20 year', giving us—instead of political discontent, and Austrian and church influence engaged in keeping the people in bondage and ignorance—a constitutional kingdom of 22,000,000, a considerable Italian army and navy, railways in all directions in the peninsula, and the admission of Italy amongst the countries adopting free trade. But the finances are getting worse, and the Post is convinced that by boldly deciding on a very large economy in warlike expenditure the King and his advisers would be choosing the lesser of the great evils which threaten the kingdom. There can be no dispute, observed the Telegraph, that— whether the shareholders would profit or not—so far as the population of London and Brighton are concerned, the opening of another railway between those towns must be a considerable benefit ; what will have to be shown before parliament is, that an additional line is required for the public convenience, that the construction of it would not be unreasonably prejudicial to the existing company, and that there is sufficient traffio for both undertakings. Both, is quite conceivable, might find ample employment. Experience constantly shows that, as larger and more liberal facilities are given to the public, full advantage will be taken.  The Telegraph deems it natural that our leading artists should prefer their independence to the post of President of the Royal Academy, with social and official duties of an onerous and exacting nature to perform, and with a salary of no more than 3001. a year. It is artistic death, it is professional suicide, to take it ; for the cost of its occuponcy fells upon the purse as well as the time of the president. Still there are always men who are in every way fit for a post which demands an part'colar genius, and to whom the discharge of the duties would be a crngeoial task; and if the Academy expects to obtain such representatives, it should endow the office mere liberally.  the Court.