American Sneaks in Canada.

At present there is a stream of emigrants to Canada of all persons who have left the country for its good.  They are of three classes—runaways from the South who want their section to win, but are too cowardly to fight, refugees from the North who dread being called to fight for their country; and a few timid persons from both North and South, who fear to lose their little property in the commotion of war.  A letter from Niagara Falls to the St. Louis Republican speaks of these refugees in the following not very complimentary terms:

‘Prominent among those here—and they may be found also at Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston and Windsor—is the typical Southern fire-eater, whose appetite for war is immense.  He can himself whip five detestable Yankees.  He belongs to earth’s nobility; has never believed in the d----d Yankee government ; in fact, has been a tory descendant of a tory family.  Sad to say this beau chevalier is seedy and out at the elbows.  His pungent oaths startle out the stolid but practical Britons.  There is a cant of respectability which should be backed up by clean linnen and an honest face, to be successful.  Among them are some who have heads for schemes and plots, of which they are ever full, but they are mainly harmless; nothing more desperate than the seizing of a trading vessel from her un-armed officers.

‘Then there is a sprinkling of snarling, disappointed office-holders and place seekers.  These are the representative “Copperheads,” though, strangely differ enough, they with Mr. Vallandigham about reconstruction.  The all        ege “the South will never return to the Union on any terms.”  We suppose there is one condition they do not recon on—defeat!

‘Among the poor, miserable fellows who linger and sponge around the hotels here, are certain parties known as “bounty jumpers”—that is, persons who successively enlist in some of the cities at the North, get the bounty and desert, and keep on repeating the process.  As many as nine were pointed out to me to-day.  One of them, however, named Moor, was recently sent back from Baltimore in his coffin, being detected in the act of deserting.  There are, beside, a goodly share of men who claim to be “escaped prisoners” from Camp Chase, Kelley’s Island and elsewhere.  Perhaps half of them are imposters, who never were prisoners of war, but I fear that very many of the rebels are not held in our hands, but are slipping through our fingers.  It is a forcible comment upon the devotion to the South and its prospects, that they are quite contented to remain in Canada, and insist that it is impossible for them to get back South.”

SOURCE: The Mount Vernon Republican, Mount Vernon, Ohio, Tuesday, August 9, 1864, p. 2