--
They took four years to do it in, although they had an army and navy
provided to their hand, and were receiving recruits in hundreds from the
masses of incoming emigrants, up to the very end of the struggle; while,
the Southerners had to improvise everything, and their forces dwindled
down day by day.

We put down the Indian mutiny in 1857 with a little handful of troops,
that had to confront thousands upon thousands of insurgent Hindoos
before a single reinforcement could arrive from England:--_we_ never
triumphed so loudly about what we did on that occasion; and yet, our
campaign against the Sepoys was fought over a far more extended
territory than the war for the "Union."

Their progress, you remark?

Pooh, my dear sir! One would almost think, to hear you talk, that the
old world had stood still in sheer astonishment ever since the "new" was
ushered into being!

Granted, that a few wooden shanties are run up "out west" on the
prairies, and styled "towns," and that these towns grow into "cities"
by-and-by:--what then? Are there not miles of streets, and houses
without number, added to London, and other little villages over here
every year, which do not attract any comment--except in the annual
report of the Registrar General?

Their Union Pacific Railway, connecting New York with Saint Francisco;
and hence abridging the distance between Europe and Asia!

A "big thing," certainly; but have you forgotten our Underground line,
and the Holborn Viaduct, and the Thames Embankment--either and all of
which can vie with the noblest relics of ancient Rome?

Bah! Don't talk to me in that strain, please. Has not France also
achieved the Suez Canal, and Italy the Mont Cenis tunnel--both works
surpassing any feat of Transatlantic engineering ever attempted. Why,
their Hoosaic tunnel, which is not near the size of the Alpine one, and
which has been talked of and worked at for the last twenty years, is not
yet half completed! Have we not, too, run railways through the jungles
of India, and spanned the wastes of Australia with the electric wire?

Ha! while alluding to telegraphs, let us instance the Atlantic cable.
_That_ strikes nearer home, doesn't it? Originated as the idea was by
an American, Cyrus Field--to whom may all honour be given--can you
inform me which country is entitled to take credit for its success--slow
England or smart America?

You won't answer, eh? Then I'll tell you.

The company that cond