ry hard on some who are refugees, having families dependent on
them. Others, who board, must be forced into the army (the design), for
their expenses per month will be some fifty per cent, more than their
income.

The weather is clear but colder.

FEBRUARY 4TH.--Clear and pretty cold. We have news of another brilliant
affair at Kinston, N. C., where Gen. Pickett has beaten the enemy,
killing and wounding and taking some 500 men, besides capturing another
gun-boat! Thus the campaign of 1864 opens auspiciously.

And Gen. Early has beaten the foe in Hardy County, Northwest Virginia,
capturing, it is said, some 800.

It is supposed that Gen. Pickett will push on to Newbern, and probably
capture the town. At all events we shall get large supplies from the
tide-water counties of North Carolina. General Lee planned the
enterprise, sending some 15,000 men on the expedition.

Yesterday the Senate Committee reported _against_ the House bill
modifying the act making all men liable to conscription who have hired
substitutes. But they are debating a new exemption bill in the House.

It is true Mr. Toombs was arrested at Savannah, or was ejected from the
cars because he would not procure a passport.

To-day Mr. Kean, the young Chief of the Bureau of War, has registered
all the clerks, the dates of their appointments, their age, and the
number of children they have. He will make such remarks as suits him in
each case, and submit the list to the Secretary for his action
regarding the increased compensation. Will he intimate that his own
services are so indispensable that he had better remain out of the
field?

The following "political card" for the Northern Democrats was played
yesterday. I think it a good one, if nothing more be said about it here.
It will give the Abolitionists trouble in the rear while we assail them
in the front.

The following extraordinary resolutions were, yesterday, introduced in
the House of Representatives by Mr. Wright of Georgia. The House went
into secret session before taking any action upon them.

"WHEREAS: The President of the United States, in a late public
communication, did declare that no propositions for peace had been made
to that government by the Confederate States, when, in truth, such
propositions were prevented from being made by the President of the
United States, in that he refused to hear, or even to receive, two
commissioners, appointed to treat expressly of the preservation o