The emigrant, it is remarked, speedily forgets--in the hurry of his new life the ways of the old slip out of his memory. One day I said to my man, as a regiment of volunteers was marching down Broadway, “Those fellows are not quite as well set up as the 41st, Pat.” “Well, indeed, and that’s thrue; but they’d fight as well I b’lieve, and better maybe, if they’d the officers, poor craychures! Anyhow,” continued he with great gravity, “they can’t be flogged for nothin’ or for anything.” “Were you ever flogged?” “No, sirir--not a lash ever touched my back, but I’ve known fine sogers spiled by it.” It is likely enough that he had never thought on the subject till he came to the States--a short time before and he would have resented deeply the idea that any regiment on earth could stand before Her Majesty’s 41st. It was now near the end of January, and as a gleam of fine weather might thaw the glorious Union army of the Potomac, and induce them to advance on the inglorious army of the Confederacy, I resolved to make the best of my way northwards forthwith. My companions were a young British officer, distinguished in the Crimea, in India, and in China, who represented a borough in Parliament, and had come out to see the great contest which was raging in the United States; and an English gentleman, who happened to be at New York, and was anxious to have a look at Niagara, even in its winter dress. On the 27th January we were all packed to start by the 5.30 P.M. train by Albany to Niagara, and thence to Toronto. The landlord made me up a small assortment of provisions, as in snow-time trains are not always certain of anything but irregularity. I was regarded as one who was about to make myself needlessly miserable when he might continue in much happiness. “You had better stay, sir, for a few days. I have certain intelligence, let me whisper you, that the Abolitionists will be whipped at the end of this week, and old Abe driven out of Washington.” The little boys still shout out, “Another great Union victory.” The last, by-the-bye, was of General Thomas, at Somerset, which has gradually sublimed into uncertainty, though he handled his men well, and is not bad at a despatch. The credulity of the American mind is beyond belief. _Populus vult decipi_--and certainly its wishes are complied with to the fullest extent. The process of a Union victory, from its birth in the first telegram down to its dissolution in the last despatch, is curious enough. Out comes an extra of the _New York Herald_--“Glorious Union Victory off Little Bear Creek, Mo.!--Five Thousand Rebels Disposed of!--Grand Skedaddle!--General Pumpkin’s Brilliant Charge!--He Out-Murats Murat!--Sanguinary Encounters!--Cassius Mudd’s Invincibles!--Doom of the Confederacy!--Jeff Davis gone to Texas!” and so on, with a display of large type, in double-headed lines, and a profusion of notes of admiration.