arbarity of some of the Yankee soldiers in the
Abolition Army of the Potomac. They thrust into the Rappahannock River a
poor old negro man, whom they had taken from his master, because he had
the small-pox; and he would have been drowned had he not been rescued by
our pickets. It is surmised that this dreadful disease prevails to an
alarming extent in the Yankee army, and probably embarrasses their
operations. Our men have all been vaccinated; and their recklessness of
disease and death is perhaps a guarantee of exemption from affliction.
Their health, generally, is better than it has ever been before.

The government at Washington has interdicted the usual exchange of
newspapers, for the present. This gives rise to conjecture that Lincoln
experiences grave difficulties from the adverse sentiment of his people
and his armies regarding his Emancipation Proclamation. And it is likely
he has met with grave losses at sea, for the invading army in North
Carolina has retired back on Newbern. But the season for naval
enterprises is not over, and we are prepared to expect some heavy blows
before April.

The revelations in the intercepted dispatches captured with Mr. Sanders,
whose father is a notorious political adventurer, may be most
unfortunate. They not only show that we even were negotiating for six
war steamers, but give the names of the firms in Europe that were to
furnish them. The project must now be abandoned. And Louis Napoleon will
be enraged at the suspicions and imputations of our Secretary of State
regarding his occult policy.

Gen. Rains has invented a new primer for shell, which will explode from
the slightest pressure. The shell is buried just beneath the surface of
the earth, and explodes when a horse or a man treads upon it. He says he
would not use such a weapon in ordinary warfare; but has no scruples in
resorting to any means of defense against an army of Abolitionists,
invading our country for the purpose, avowed, of extermination. He tried
a few shell on the Peninsula last spring, and the explosion of only four
sufficed to arrest the army of invaders, and compelled them to change
their line of march.

JANUARY 26TH.--The _Northern_ papers say Hooker's grand division crossed
the Rappahannock, ten miles above Falmouth, several days ago.

Burnside has issued an address to his army, promising them another
battle immediately.

Gen. Lee advises the government to buy all the grain in the counties
through