New York.—­The greatest possible excitement exists here, agitating alike the bosoms of the Whites, the Browns, and the Blacks; a universal sympathy appears to exist among all classes, the greater portion of whom are looking exceedingly blue.  The all-absorbing question as to whether the “war is to be or not to be,” seems an exceedingly difficult one to answer.  One party says “Yes,” and another party says “No,” and a third party says the above parties “Lie in their teeth;” and thereupon issue is joined, and bowie-knives are exchanged—­the “Yes” walking away with “No’s” sheathed in the middle of his back, and the “No” making up for his loss by securing the “Yes’s” somewhere between his ribs.  All the black porters are looking out for light jobs, and rushing about with shutters and cards of address, bearing high-minded “Loco-focos” and shot-down “democrats” to their respective surgeons and houses.  This unusual bustle and activity gives the more political parts of the city an exceedingly brisk appearance, and has caused most of the eminent surgeons, not attached to either party, to be regularly retained by the principal speakers in these most interesting debates.

In Congress great attention is paid to the comfort of the various members, who are all provided with spittoons, though they are by no means compelled to tie themselves down to the exclusive use of those expectorant receptacles; on the contrary, much ingenuity is shown by some of the more practised in picking out other deposits; a vast majority of the Kentuckians will back themselves to “shoot through” the opposition member’s nose and eye-glass without touching “flesh or flints.”

The prevailing opinion appears to be, that should we come to a fight they will completely alter the costume of the country, and “whop us into fits.”  Their style of elocution is masterly in the extreme, redolent with the sagest deductions, and overflowing with a magnificent and truly Eastern redundancy of the most poetical tropes.  I will now proceed to give you an extract from the celebrated speaker on the war side—­“the renowned Jonathan J. Twang.”

“I rather calculate that tarnal, pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed, roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter ‘the Old Country,’ would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present identical out-and-out important critical crisis!  I conceit their min’stry have got jist about into as considerable a tarnation nasty fix, as a naked nigger in the stocks when the mosquitoes are steaming up a little beyond high pressure.  I guess Prince Albert and the big uns don’t find their seats quite as soft as buttered eels in a mud bank!  Look here—­isn’t it considerable clear they’re all funking like burnt Cayenne in a clay pipe; or couldn’t they have made a raise some how to get a ship of their own, or borrow one, to send after that caged-up ’coon of a Macleod?