1860. December 25. – Christmas. Fahrenheit stood this morning eighteen degrees below freezing point. A rare degree of cold in England, exceeding any we have felt during our residence in London.
Mr. Cobb resigned the Treasury on the 10th instant. He will greatly strengthen the secession movement in Georgia. A dissolution of the Union seems imminent, and, should it occur, will attest and perhaps permanently establish the supremacy of abolitionism; for it will be seen that by the withdrawal of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, let alone the other slave-holding States, Lincoln and the Republican party will at once be placed in an overwhelming Congressional majority, and have a clear field to push their principles to extreme practice. Markoe and Hutchinson, writing on the same day, agree in drawing a most melancholy picture of the condition of the country, politically and financially.