General Butler is trying to enlighten the nation upon the knotty subject of finance. He seems to have taken the dilemma by the horns. It is not decided which will get the best of it, but the people can rest assured that General Butler will make a good fight. Like Andrew Johnson, he has only to point to his past record. It will be remembered that the gallant General paid his respects to the step-father of his country on New Year’s day. An eye witness of this historical event pronounced the “scene” extremely “touching” and one long to be remembered by the fortunate beholders. A sensational writer is engaged upon a new drama founded upon this theme. It will soon be brought out upon the boards at the National Theater under the high-sounding title of “Burying the Hatchet.” The writer of the drama is at a loss whether to call this production comedy or tragedy. It would be extremely comic, only the closing scene ends with Andy’s plumping the hatchet into the grave from sheer exhaustion, and the moment afterward he glides away into obscurity like a graceful Ophidian, or Hamlet’s ghost. The wily warrior is left master of the situation; not at all shut up like a fly in a bottle, but still able to be of use not only to his constituents but to the masses of his admiring countrymen. But why talk politics when the social strata is so much more interesting? It is the social star which is in the ascendent to-day. The new Cabinet is discussed in shy little nods and whispers, between sips of champagne and creamy ices, in magnificent drawing rooms at the fashionable West End. Aye, why not give our dear Chicago friends a description of the most brilliant party of the season, which took place at the handsome residence of a merchant prince and member of Congress, the Honorable D. McCarthy, of Syracuse, N. Y. As the guests were brought together by card invitations, it follows that only the cream of Washington society was represented. To be sure there was a crowd; but then, it is not so very uncomfortable to be pressed to death by the awful enginery of a foreign minister, a major-general and a Vice-President elect, or to find yourself buried alive by drifts of snowy muslin or costly silk or satin, and your own little feet inextricably lost by being entangled in somebody’s train, and yourself sustained in the trying position by being held true to the perpendicular by the close proximity of your next neighbor. This can be borne by the most sensitive, owing to the delicate nature of the martyrdom.