SIR, propos to your wise remark in the Spectator of
February 20th on " The True Cause of the Failure of Arbitra- tion," that human nature is "agin it," is the following:—A Peace Convention was being held in one city, and the Grand Army men—the veterans of our Civil War—were holding their Convention at the same time in another. The "Peace- .at-any-price " men telegraphed to the " Boys in Blue," urging them to promote the cause of peace. The humour of the old campaigner (probably it was General Lou Wagner of Phila- delphia) came to the front and saluted, and gave the peacites something to think about, "to chew over," so to speak. Their reply was,—We are determined to have peace, even if we have to fight for it. No mere civilian knew so well as these defenders during five years of the Union the cost in blood and agony of war—no one has depicted more forcibly than General Grant
d id in his "Life," the horrors, the brutality, and the waste of war—but knowing all this so well, they were determined to have peace in their time and for their descendants. As the man in Maine said,—" We are all for the Prohibition Law, but we are agin its enforcement."—I am, Sir, &c., Moseley, Birmingham, February 20th. HORACE J. SMITH.
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