It is a notable fact that how much soever animals of the genus homo may be averse to the approach of a snow-storm, a genuine old-fashioned fall of snow is always a season of merriment with that portion of the creation which we are wont, in she plenitude of ourself-complacency, and as distinguished from ourselves, to denominate the brute. The old horse prances amid the descending flakes with the joyous motion of youth and health; the young colt kicks up his heels and carries his head in the air as though he snuffed the battle in the distance. The cattle gambol with all the elasticity of au elephant in his native jungle. The dog plays a thousand antic tricks around his master, seeming to invite him to partake in his sport. All four-footed nature is glad, and of trop-footed nature, man, the eternal grumbler, is alone sullen and sulky.

But man is sulky and sullen because it is not his season to be happy and hilarious. Man, however, has such a season (Christian man we mean, for we take no account of the five hundred millions of pagans, who were put here for no better purpose than to fill up space): that season is the space of time which elapses between the eighteenth and twenty-fifth of December. Then every man, woman and child begins to feel Christmas in his, her or its bones, and incontinently goes mad for joy about some thing--what we could never exactly understand. The feeling seems akin to that of the man who makes the trip to Santa Fee across the country, and who rises up every morning in the pure air of the prairies with a disposition to shout a loud and thank God that he is alive. Of course work goes on until Christmas day, but it is done in a very slovenly manner, and had best, in most cases, be left undone altogether. It seems to be a decree of fate that Christian man should be utterly disorganized at least once a year; and at this precise season of the year everybody is on the move; steamboats and railroads do a heavy business, and everybody that has horses to hire out may calculate on a small fortune.

At last, Christmas — the long-looked-for, the much desired — comes; and oh ! Seged, King of Ethiopia, what does it bring with it? Like all other earthly things, disappointment. Man cannot be happy when he sets a day to be so; and therefore he is very seldom happy on Christmas day. Let any man look back on his past life, and select the days worthiest to be marked with a white stone; how many Christmas days will he reckon among them? It comes once a year, as if for the express purpose of proving the mournful truth that there is in this world always more pleasure in anticipation, than in reality.

From a lecture recently delivered on "Cotton," before the Geographical and Statistical Society of New York, by Mr. Edward A. Atkinson, it appears that the cotton crop of this country in 1860 was a little over five millions of bales, while that reported as produced in other countries was only seven hundred and fifty thousand bales. These five million bales furnished the material to employ, in England, thirty-three million spindles; on the continent, twelve millions; and in the United States, five millions. Estimating the capital employed in spinning, weaving and printing this crop as equal to ten dollars per spindle, we have a result of $500,000,000 employed in the manufacture of this cotton. To attend to this manufacture required about one million of workmen, whose labors resulted in increasing the value of these five million bales from $200,000,000 to about $500,000,000. Estimating the average product per hand on the plantation at a little over six bales, we have eight hundred thousand slaves employed in the production of this crop of 1860, which, at the average value of $1,250--not a large price for field hands at that time — represents a capital of $1,000,000,000 double the amount employed in its manufacture! Under the new system of labor which must now be adopted, it is hoped that in a few years the cost of production of the raw material will be reduced to a moiety of its former cost. The fact is shown by statistics that only about one and ttwo-thirds per cent. of the area of the Southern States is devoted to cotton-growing. In other words, said the lecturer, imagine the Cotton States to be represented by a cheque-board of the usual sixty-four squares, and the amount of land actually employed would be represented by one square. The entire cotton-producing region of America is not larger than the States of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. There are still vast tracts of the Southern, and especially the Southwestern States, not now devoted to cotton culture, which can be profitably employed for that purpose. The table lands of Texas, now solely devoted to grazing, are well adapted to the cultivation of cotton. In 1860, Texas, on one-fourth of one per cent. of her territory, raised four hundred and five thousand bales. The large German population of Texas bids fair to make it one of the first cotton-producing States in the Union. The great necessity now is to get the labor system of the cotton States organized and regulated, in order to obtain the means of re-establishing our credit abroad and relieving the nation from the pecuniary burdens which now press upon it.

Dr. John R. Baylor, of Caroline county, has leased his fine estate in that county, for the term of ten years, to Mr. Black, a Scotch gentleman, whose name is well known in connection with the proposed Scotch emigration to Virginia. For this estate, comprising about two thousand acres, it is said that Dr. Baylor is to receive three thousand dollars a year for the first three years, and five thousand dollars a year for the succeeding seven years. We learn that Mr. Black has purchased the fine estate of Mr. Allen, in Goochland county. It is said that Mr. Black designs making Dr. Baylor's farm, in Caroline, the place of his residence, and intends returning to Scotland at an early day, with the view of bringing over with him a colony of emigrants, embracing in the number the sons of large farmers, who will have something wherewith to purchase and improve.

Such an immigration will be most welcome to Virginia. Indeed, some of its most valuable early settlers were Scotchmen, who contributed as much as any other class to the business and prosperity of the State. The Scotch are a remarkably industrious and thrifty people, raised in a stern school of morality, proverbial for their shrewdness and common sense, and not afraid of hard work. This is the kind of men we most need.

That cynical and peremptory statesman, Great Bismark, the Chief Minister of Prussia, has announced that "force takes precedence of right." He has stated upon that principle from the moment that he assumed the direction of Prussian affairs, but has never avowed it, that we are aware of, before. Under the inspiration of this audacious personage, an Austria-Prussian note has been addressed to the Senate of Frankfort, which prefigures an occupation of that free city, and the dispersal, by force of arms, of the National German Congress appetite there to be held. The lesser German Powers are likely to have a taste of the cup which they so lately commended to the lips of Denmark. This Von Bismark is beginning to figure largely in European diplomacy; a regular "German Devil" in the Old World Absolutism, of which he is the chief living representative, He holds that the people have no rights except those vouchsafed to them by the Crown, and intends to make Prussia the leading German Power. If France should take it into her head some day to revise her boundaries towards the Rhine, Von Bismark's maxim, that "force takes precedence of right," may return to plague the inventor.

We are pleased to observe that a resolution has been adopted by the United States House of Representatives, instructing the Committee on Commerce to inquire "what legislation, if "any, is necessary for the safety and protection "of persons traveling upon railroads in the "United States, and to report by bill or other"wise." The occurrence of railway accidents in all parts of the country shows that railway mismanagement is a national evil of increasing magnitude. It is very desirable, therefore, that a national remedy should, if possible, be applied. Some years ago the prevalence of steamboat accidents, especially on the Western waters, rendered it advisable for every man to make his will before embarking in what had become little better than infernal machines. The slaughter of one of these steamboat explosions, or collisions, was nearly equal to that of a battle. Public indignation was greatly excited by each fresh repetition of these atrocities, and various methods of safety were suggested, but none proved effectual till Congress took the matter in hand. The success of the measures adopted in regard to steamboats increases the probabilities that additional safeguards may be thrown around railway passengers by appropriate legislation now.

It is proposed in the Common Council of New York to erect a monument to Fulton, who first successfully applied steam to navigation.

If ever a public benefactor deserved such an honor, this was the man. But it is wrong to speak of it as an honor to him. It is a dishonor to his countrymen that his name has never been commemorated by such a memorial, and more disgraceful still that his family have been permitted to remain in poverty. What cities, States, empires, has his genius enriched, and yet his descendants have wandered, penniless, amongst the almost fabulous treasures their ancestor brought to light! Perhaps the best tribute that could be paid to him would be a return to his descendants of some of the boundless wealth that his invention conferred upon his country.

New York, the Empire State, owes her greatness principally to two men--Fulton and Clinton. They were neither of them politicians. The politicians are a disputatious, pestiferous and unproductive race, who never do any good to mankind. They often succeed in destroying the products of creative genius and practical minds, but never substitute anything in their place. They live in and for themselves, make a great noise and attract much attention, but they are like clouds which promise rain, and turn out nothing but wind, disappointing the thirsty earth and blowing dust in people's eyes. De Witt Clinton, it is true, was a public man, but a public man in the best sense — advancing the civilization, power, influence and credit of his native State by works of public and practical utility. On his Atlantean shoulders he bore New York from infancy to empire. The great canal with which his name is indelibly associated is his best monument. But he was no politician. He did not court popularity, but popularity followed him, and was chained to his triumphal car. All that Clinton accomplished was the dust of the balance compared to the fruits of Fulton's triumph. Clinton labored for a State, Fulton for the world, and wherever the hot breath of steam pants over the waters, it tells the story of his fame.

It is strange how little consideration the world bestows upon its greatest benefactors, whilst it never tires of admiring those who do it most injury, such as selfish politicians and ambitious soldiers.

The Senators and Legislators of Virginia, in General Assembly, are ever fond of There is a strong tendency on the part of honorable gentlemen to define their positions, to set themselves right before the country, and to speak out in the face of the world. They do not realize the fact that oratory is a thing of the past, and that great orators, like epic poets, belong to a half-civilized age; that gentlemen meet here to do, and not to say; and that the best possible speaking is only an obstruction to business. But when the rhetoric is not fine, and the logic not convincing, then affairs become much worse; then does lukewarm eloquence rule the hour, and diluted oratory take every form from the pompous periods of the gentleman from Puff Ball to the solid statistics of the gentleman from Leadenhead. There are as many different sorts of bad oratory as there are different kinds of ugly men; and public speaking, like the human face, is deformed by narrowness of brow, dimness of eyesight, vacancy of expression, and superabundance of jaw.

For instance, there is the honorable gentleman who does "not rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of protracting this debate," and who immediately, then and there, does protract it. Then there is the gentleman who rises "for the purpose of making only a single remark," and who proceeds at once to make a hundred remarks — or, rather, the same remark a hundred times over. Another gentleman says he is very loth to occupy "the time of the Legislature at this stage of the debate," and who straightway does violence to his feelings by consuming much of that time — time for which the State pays about one thousand dollars a day. There are others who rise without apology, and who, with baleful self-possession, clear their throats, call for a glass of water, gather books and papers around them for reference and quotation, and go with great deliberation into the business of saving their country.

If honorable gentlemen, who are orators, were listened to only by other honorable gentlemen, who are also orators, it would all be well. The men who suffer would have their revenge. But there are many steady old Virginia gentlemen in the Legislature who never make speeches themselves, and who do not seem to be enchained by the eloquence of those who do. These gentlemen sometimes do rise and give a few sentences of plain talk, or give straightforward answers to straightforward questions; and this is doing better than they would if they were all Patrick Henrys. In the English Parliament, speech-making is obsolete. Questions of the greatest importance to England, and often to the world, are discussed in a colloquial way. Any gentleman attempting an oration would be coughed down at once, and deserve it, too.

There are many men who talk well enough, who cannot speak. They make an elaborate exordium, prepared beforehand; and by the time they get to the end of that they find to their consternation that the portico is too big for the house; that after taking a high view of the subject in a high pitch of voice, that descent is impossible. Then odd ends and odd beginnings of sentences come tumbling, leapfrog, from his lips; illogical deductions are drawn from absurd premises, and the hand held aloft for impassioned gesticulation has nothing in particular to do. And then the honorable member sits him down amid an appalling silence without having said what he fain would have said: what perhaps might have been of value; and what he could have said well enough if he had only talked without attempting to make a speech.

Or that our Senators and Legislators, in General Assembly, would only realize how disgusting a thing it is to make a speech!