Johnson’s remark about Fleet-street would apply with truth to the gawky thoroughfare of the Atlantic Tyre. In the Broadway or its “west-end” extensions are to be found all the hotels, which are the ganglia of the feverish nervous system so incessantly agitated by the operations of the journalistic insects living in secret cysts nigh at hand. All day the great tideway is rolling in, headed by a noisy crest of little boys, with extras under their arms, and heralded by a confused surfy murmur of voices telling “lies” for cents, and enunciating “Another Great Union Victory!” in one great bore; or it is rushing out again with a dismal leaden current, laden with doubts and fears, as the news of some disaster breaks through the locks of government reservoirs and floods the press. In my hotel, where I was fain to seclude myself in my illness, and to follow the very un-American practice of living in a suite of private rooms, there was but little conflict of opinion on any great event, real or fictitious, which turned up from day to day. The guests and visitors were well-nigh all of one way of thinking. They were of the old conservative party, so oddly denominated Democrats, who believed in States Rights: in the right of states to create and maintain their domestic institutions--to secede, if they pleased, from the Union--to resist the attempts of the General Government of the other states to coerce them by force of arms. Some of these gentlemen were satisfied the South would not be coerced; some hoped the South would resist successfully. None, I fear, were “loyal” to President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, and I am sure none would have said so much for either of them or their friends as I would. The majority principle forces people who hold similar views to meet together, and to select the same hotels to live in. This is unfortunate for a stranger who desires to hear the views of both sides. In the New York, from the highly artistic and skilful operator who flashed out cocktails at the bar, up to the highest authority, there was no man who would like to say that he was on good terms with Mr. Sumner, or that he did not think Mr. Seward the representative of evil principles. The rule was proved by the exceptions: two I suspect there were--stout Irish waiters, who did not approve of the attempts to destroy “our glorious Union,” but who did not find the atmosphere of the place quite favourable to the free expression of the opinion they mildly hinted at to myself.