It is worth while, at the conclusion of such a year, to look about us; to see what has been done or what is now doing, and to surmise as well as we may what great changes the future may bring forth. A year ago this country was plagued and disgraced beyond any on the face of the earth by swarms of professional politicians; by men who regarded all legislation as one vast Lobby and Third House, and 'ability' as the means of turning corruption to their own personal advantage. These miserables, whether on the Northern or Southern side, tacitly united in driving all legislation or congressional business from its legitimate halls into the procrastinating by-paths, in order that they might make speeches and magnify themselves unto Buncombe, and be glorified by the local home press because of their devotion to--the party! The party! That was always the word. Where are these men of froth and wind now,--these heroes of the stump and the bar-room? Passing away into nothing, at headlong speed, before the great storm of the times. Now and then they 'rally'--there was one ghastly wig-and-hollow-pumpkin effort at recovery in the trembling, rattle-jointed Peace Movement of these last summer months. Where is it now? There answers a gay laugh and merry stave from the corners of irreverent weekly newspapers:-- 'The piece of a party, called the party of peace, Like everything else which deceases, Has gone where the wicked from trouble shall cease, For the party of peace is in pieces.' Or we may see now and then wretched election meetings, as of late in New York, where a worn-out FERNANDO WOOD and others like him gabble as much treason as they dare. It is all played out--Mozart, Tammany, and all the trash. Rummy, frowsy candidates, treating Five-Point graduates, and shoulder-hitting bravos yelling at the polls, are beginning to be disgusting and anti-national elements. Their very existence is an insult to these great, serious and glorious times of manly war, when young men are beginning at last to 'think great.' A few more gasps by the politicians and down they must go into infinite depths of congenial darkness, to be remembered only as allied to 'the abominable state of affairs before the war.' It is no small thing to have driven so much of the old iniquity out; but from this and that side come murmurs that there are but few signs of the young genius coming in. Oh, for one hour of Dundee! Oh, for a WEBSTER in the cabinet, whose right arm should go forth and take hold of England and Frank-land of the East, while his left swept the isles of the South with fearful power! Oh, for the fierce old Dandolo of America, who was _not_ blind, but whose piercing glance at this hour would dart through many a diabolical diplomatic difficulty--for ANDREW JACKSON! Oh, for the trumpet tones of CLAY--of MARCY--for one brave blast of that dread horn of olden time which rang so bravely to battle!