The influence of facings, indeed, goes much further than that in general society. The hotel in which I live (a very attentive host is doing his best to complete the resemblance by extensive dilapidations) is as like a barracks as can be. The “St. Lawrence Hall” is in a military occupation. The obstacles in way of “alterations” are bestridden by Guardsmen, Riflemen, and Engineers, on their way to breakfast and dinner, as if they were getting through breaches. In the hall abundance of soldiers, anxious orderlies with the quaint quartoes full of orders, and military idlers smoking as much as you like, but, I am glad to say, not chewing--nor, as a New York paper calls the Republican Senators, “tobacco-expectorant.” To appreciate this boon properly, pray be prepared to limit the suffrage immensely. In the passages more orderlies and soldier-servants, who now and then do a little of what is called flirting with the passing _demoiselles de service_; tubs outside in the passage; doors of rooms open _à la caserne_; military chests and charts on the table. It would have given those who admit that war is necessary sometimes, as the sole means of redressing national grievances, considerable satisfaction to have seen the difference presented by the regular troops of Great Britain in Canada and the vast masses of volunteers assembled on the Potomac by the United States. It is not that the British are one whit finer men: taking even the Guards, there are some few regiments there which in height and every constituent of physique, except gross weight, cannot be excelled. As a whole, perhaps, the average of intelligence, taken there to mean reading and writing, may be higher among the United States volunteers than among the British regulars;--not much, however. The Sanitary Commission of New York, a very patriotic and thoroughly American body, did not attempt to claim more than three-fifths of the United States armies as of American _birth_. The immediate descendants of Irish and German parents are thus included among native-born Americans, though they are in all respects except birth Irish and Germans still. Very probably they have not partaken to the full, or to any great extent, of the advantages of public education. But, taking the statement of the Commissioners--which, by-the-bye, is a very serious reflection on the patriotism of the Northern populations--it may be doubted whether in reading, writing, and arithmetic there is any great superiority on the part of the United States troops over the British. I admit that in some regiments of the New England States there is a higher average of such knowledge as may enable a man to argue on the orders of his officers, and of such intelligence as may induce him to believe he is competent to criticise the conduct of a campaign.