Nevertheless, mighty as the pen may be, it must fail equally with the well-known Southern Confederacy to do justice to this Capital of our distracted country in its present social peculiarities. The cackling of geese once saved the Capitol of the Roman Empire, my boy; but it will take more geese than those who have come hither with the expectation of being respected for their virtues, to save Washington from permanent investment by all the speculative chaps on earth who have no other capital to invest. The present social circle around the family hearth of this Capitalian and Congressional town, my boy, is somewhat more remarkable than it was, even in the palmiest and most mutually abusive days of our eloquent National Legislature, and fully equals the frequent domestic symposium of Albany when the State Legislature meet _there_. Look into a Washington home, and you shall find the venerable grandfather, who sits nearest the fire, talking and chuckling to himself over his success that day in depreciating the national currency by first frightening a country squire on the street almost into fits by prating learnedly about "repudiation," and then buying all his treasury notes from him at fifty per cent. discount! Next sits the younger husband and father, cataloguing to his devoted wife, with the forefinger of his right hand upon all the fingers of his left, the successive pecuniary advantages sure to accrue from a contract he has just obtained to supply our national troops with patent suspenders, and which will enable him to return to New York in the spring, purchase a palatial residence on Fifth Avenue, and sign urgent and influential calls for Peace Conventions. Thirdly, my boy, we have the interesting wife and mother who listens to her lord and master's revelation with beaming satisfaction, glancing occasionally at her youthful son and heir, who, with two thimbles, is practising upon the rug at her feet the curious and ingenious game of the "Little Joker," whereby he hopes to reap profit from his small associates on the morrow. The fourth figure of this prayerful group around the home altar is the highly elaborated daughter, reading over her lover's shoulder, from a newspaper held conveniently by him, a spicy, exciting, moral tale of a daring spirit who had sold a sloop-load of hay, just as it floated, to the Government, and then--when he had got his pay--set fire to it and burnt the whole concern so effectually, that very few could presume to think that at least two-thirds of it had been old straw.