My long absence with our somewhat tedious national troops, my boy,--troops now constituting a flaming about the throat of this exciting Rebellion;--my long absence, I say, has given this Capital City of our distracted country an opportunity to thrive apace in the development of those public and private virtues, which so thoroughly unpopularize Vice in this chaste locality, that even the Vice President is never heard of. True it is, that one misses those pleasant and gorgeous chaps of much watch-chain and an observable extent of diamond breastpin, who were wont, in the days of genial Southern preponderance, to lend lustre to the hall-ways of the more majestic hotels, and occasionally induce the inebriated son of Chivalry to join them at Faro his table. We miss these light and airy chaps, each of whom is now an unblushing Confederacy without hope of Reconstruction; we miss the high and lofty Carolina chap of much hat-brim, whose playful moments after the bottle were now and then illustrated with a lively shot from a revolver at a waiter, or cheerful pass with a bowie-knife at his opponent in conversation. And oh! we miss those languishing magnolia belles, whose eyes always reminded me of fresh drops of ink on tinted paper, and whose beautiful belief in the utter vulgarity of all Northern ladies it was really quite delightful to hear. Yes, my boy, all, all are gone; but we have in their places such representatives of genuine republican simplicity as you shall not see again in a circuit of the globe. Our hotel-halls are brightened by youthful forms in the self-sacrificing uniform of our national army; and these youthful forms, being mostly from the country, confine their innocent gaming, almost exclusively, to the athletic game of "checkers." The prominent walking-gentlemen of Willard's wear black velvet vests all the year round, and, so far from shooting waiters, are always on the most familiar terms with that oppressed race; joking freely with them and recognizing them as intimate equals, as all genuine citizens of a true Republic should do. And as for our present Washington ladies,--wearing Lisle-thread gloves at the dinner-table and putting almonds and raisins into their pockets before leaving it, God bless 'em!--why they know no more of anything vulgar, than a maniac does of insanity.