every side of it that you can tell exactly how it looks. I have now taken my last stand until the next time, and I shall never disgrace the great name I have inherited from my worthy paternal progenitor. I shall now conclude, gentlemen, and should I receive any more letters, you may depend upon their publication in the Daily Abolition Stick. The learned gentleman here took his seat amid the most uproarious enthusiasm.

At this stage of the proceedings considerable commotion was visible on the stage in consequence of the appearance of a committee of gentlemen in favor of a vigorous. prosecution of the war. The Chairman desired to address a few words to the meeting, which permission was generously granted by the President. He then came forward and spoke as follows:

Gentlemen of the Loyal League of Spouters and Mutual Puffing Society-In connection with the gentlemen who have accompanied me, I have been deputed by a number of the loyal citizens of this metropolis to make a proposition to this meeting which, I have no doubt, will prove highly acceptable. (Cries of, "Hear him-hear him!") Gentlemen, this is a large meeting; there must at least be three thousand persons present.

A Voice: More than that.

Well, gentlemen, are you all in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war? (Loud cries of, "We are-we are.") Will you go for the President right or wrong? (Loud cries of, "We will-we will.") That, gentlemen, is what I call true patriotism. (Cheers.) Now, then, gentlemen, I am commissioned to say, that as you are in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, and of sustaining the President right or wrong, the patriotic gentlemen by whom we are commissioned have pledged themselves to provide every man of you with a uniform and a musket, and to pay your expenses all the way down to the army of the Potomac.

Great consternation was caused by this announcement among the audience, in the midst of which a large portion of it, finding the place inconveniently warm, succeeded in getting into the fresh air with extraordinary rapidity. Mr. Van Gabble, Mr. O'Puff, Mr. Mudley Hill, and several other prominent supporters of the Government, with

astonishing unanimity sprang to their feet and moved for an immediate adjournment, which the President put to the meeting without further delay; and having taken the ayes, concluded, without regard to the nays, that the meeting was adjourned.

Thus ended the great mass meeting at Peddlers' Hall, Bunkum Square; and thus may all who are in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war escape the designs of deep-dyed traitors, who imagine that a man can not sustain the Administration as well in the Post-Office or Custom-House as on the field of battle. None but a secesh can understand that if an anaconda is necessary to squeeze the life out of the South, it is not equally necessary that the life of the North should be squeezed out by BOA-CON

TRACTORS.

[NOTE BY REPORTER.-It is only a tribute to true merit and patriotism to state that the conduct of Counselors O'Puff and Van Gabble is beyond all praise, particularly when it is known that to serve the Administration they have not hesitated to forego all prospects of political promotion hereafter.]

SOME PLAIN TALK.

(From the METROPOLITAN RECORD of April 18, 1863.)

Ir is now two years since the war commenced, and we are to-day further than ever from the attainment of the object which the Administration is said to have in viewthe restoration of the Union. Armies, numbering in the aggregate fourteen or fifteen hundred thousand men, and money to the amount of about fifteen hundred millions of dollars, have been placed at the disposal of the President; and yet, with all our boasted superiority in population and material resources, we have less chance to-day of reducing the South to submission than we had when the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter.

We ask any candid man if this is not a fair, though brief statement of the relative positions occupied at present by the North and the South? Still we are told, "this war must go on; we are in for it now, and we can not, if we would, make peace short of national disgrace and humilia

tion." "What!" says an enthusiastic Loyal Leaguer, "shall we submit to Jeff Davis? Shall we sue to the rebel South for peace? No, sir; this war must go on, even if we were to shed the last drop of our blood and spend our last dollar." Now, let us remark that the man who talks in this inflated strain is the very last to think of shedding the first drop of his own blood, or to spend the first dollar of his own money, unless, indeed, he be compelled to do so by the unlucky chances of the conscription lottery. In fact, we are inclined to think that if he could save the expense through the favoritism of the War Department, he would be most happy to place himself upon the list of exempts.

So much, then, for the sincerity of those who clamor for the continuance of this melancholy, this fratricidal war—a war, not for the restoration of the country, but for the continued power and domination of a faction. But how is it with the great body of the people? Are they still in favor of a perpetuation of a conflict which threatens the establishment of a permanent military despotism, and which is already pressing with terrible weight upon the laboring classes of the country? We sincerely believe that they are not, and that if they were presented with the opportunity of giving their decision, it would be in favor of an armistice with a view to a peaceful settlement of the armed controversy now waging between the two sections. We believe, moreover, that they have lost all confidence in the Administration, and that the last hope of a restoration of the Union through war has departed from the great popular heart.

It is true that the so-called leaders of the people are opposed to the suspension of hostilities; but let us ask, do they really speak for the people? Have they been commissioned as their mouthpieces to give expression to such views? For our own part we must say, that they do not express the feelings of the great majority of the Northern masses in regard to the prolongation of the war. Many of them have not the manliness nor the courage to say what they really believe, that the longer continuance of this war will render the restoration of the Union hereafter an impossibility, This is no time for mincing the

matter. We have had enough of temporizing and polit ical hypocrisy, and it is full time to look the question squarely in the face without flinching, no matter what the timid or nervous may say.

This is no longer war. It is slaughter; it is rapine, and the acts that have come to light lately show a vandalism that reflects the deepest disgrace on a nation which professes to be Christian. We have had enough of expediency, enough of time-serving, enough of hypocritical professions of loyalty, and we must at last deal with the hard facts of the case. In the first place, the past two years should satisfy us of two things that the military subjugation of the South .s an impossibility; and in the second, that the present disunion Administration can not restore the Union. These are the two leading facts presented by a consideration of the case; but there are some others which we propose to review before dismissing the subject for the present, and we shall submit them in the following brief, but, we trust, sufficiently comprehensive and intelligible manner.

The people of the South are at the present time more hostile to the old Union than they were two years, or even one year ago. This result has been brought about by the Abolition and sectional policy of the Administration.

The restoration of the Union by war was a departure from the well-known policy of conciliation and compromise, and was calculated to render division permanent.

The invasion of the South was the maddest project ever devised by men professing to be statesmen, inevitably leading, as it has done, to the consolidation of the Southern States into a unit for the purpose of determined and aggressive resistance.

The people of the North have lost all trust and confidence in the Administration-a fact which is attributable to its unconstitutional course and its utter incompetency.

The upopularity of an unjust, a one-sided, and oppressive Conscription Act which discriminates between the rich and the poor, in favor of the former and against the latter.

The repulse sustained at Fredericksburg, at Port Hudson, at Vicksburg, Charleston, and other places.

The mad and wicked policy of supposing that Americans could conquer Americans, or that the freemen of the South could be subdued by an Abolition faction, or would ever submit to an Administration which set at defiance all constitutional restraints, and obstinately refused to offer any terms of conciliation or compromise.

The Confiscation Act, which placed the property of our Southern fellow-citizens at the disposal of courts which had no constitutional existence, and at the mercy of such men as he who brought disgrace upon the national character and a stain upon the national flag by his inhuman course as military governor of New Orleans.

The burning of cities, the wanton destruction of private property, as in the case of Jacksonville.

The emancipation of slaves, and the overthrow of State limits.

In these facts are to be found some of the prominent causes which are daily widening the chasm between the North and the South, and which will render union, even in the far-distant future, almost an impossibility.

Now, we say, in consideration of all these facts, the feelings of the people should not be disguised. If their so-called leaders are prevented by expediency, or by political hypocrisy, from a fair and candid exposition of their views and opinions, and if the Administration should be deceived (which we think is not at all probable) by them as to the real sentiments of the masses, they may be made aware of it by the most terrific popular revolution that ever convulsed a country. Let us not be misunderstood in this matter. We deprecate anything like an armed uprising of the people so long as they are left the freedom of discussion in public meetings, and the right of deciding on public questions through the ballot-box. But have we. not been made painfully aware already that even the ballot-box is not sacred from the invasion and encroachments of the faction in power? It is but a few days since the democratic voters in Indianapolis were driven from the polls by soldiers who it is said were sent there for that very purpose; while in Connecticut it is insisted that the volunteers of the Union army, whose political principles were previously subjected to a test, were employed by the