Froude and other great writers admit that but little real progress has been made under our social institutions. Changes have come along the line of the centuries, it is true, but the "poor man" (and the term generically comprehends the vast majority of the race), the poor man suffers as much in these days as in those of Moses, or in Caligula's, or in the dark ages, or any period of feudal times; and yet we boast of "progress." In no period of the world's history has anything more reprehensible than the suffering of the Irish people at home, in these days, occurred; and there is no reason found in the organic structure of our government why our own poor suffer less, or shall suffer less in the future, than the Irish people now, save that there is a little more mercy in the laws which the tyrant or governing classes of this country make for the laboring classes, in the matter of certain household goods, for example, exempt from levy of attachment or execution; (but this is true only of the laws of certain States, not of the national laws). And this very hour, as we write, the National Congress is contemplating putting millions of acres of the public domain into the hands of the tyrant forces, thus robbing the future millions who will need the soil to live upon. "The poor man's feelings"! But we dismiss the subject here, with the simple words,--eloquent enough to stir every decent soul to indignation over the wrongs of the laboring classes,--"The feelings of a poor man"! But more work for the soldier and his family remained for McWatters to do, and he is at this writing (February, 1871) attempting, with the support of the ever noble and active Ladies' Union Relief Association, to get an act passed by Congress, by which an honorably discharged soldier, too poor to buy his own grave, may console himself, in his last moments, that his family will not be obliged to follow him to a pauper's last resting-place. Now, only such soldiers as die in actual service have a right to be buried in the National Cemeteries. The veriest villain may have enlisted in the service yesterday, and died, and be buried to-day in the National Cemeteries. But the honorably discharged soldier, who served through the war bravely and nobly, is not entitled to be buried therein, and if he dies poor, goes to the potter's field. Such is the nation's gratitude!