very healthy, near Regent's-park.

CHILDREN (Nurse); could take a family, low; commencing 3s. 6d. per week; This may be proposed to ingenious readers as a riddle. The want of the advertiser is evidently "children." It is clear that a nurse "could take a family," but why that family should be low passes our comprehension. We presume that she would object to a family that was respectable, turn up her nose at a family that was genteel, and mock at and scorn one that was aristocratic. Then how can a low family "commence at 3s. 6d. per week?" and why should 3s. 6d. per week be considered "very healthy, near Regent's-park?" The health of the sum of 3s. 6d. does not vary with locality. Let us hope that the wishes of the advertiser may be speedily crowned with success, and that she may meet with the lowest of families and the healthiest of three and sixpences in the immediate vicinity of Regent's-park. Astley's Theatre announces the return of "that public favourite, the daring and graceful actress, MISS ADAH ISAACS MENKEN," in terms that compel us to say of the eccentric and dazzling concoctor of the advertisement, "again he urges on his wild career.' The gifted writer says:-"The happy termination of the war recals her (MIss MENKEN) to America, but before leaving England MR. E. T. SMITH has secured her services for Astley's for only a few nights!" Happy America, where the war is terminated! Wretched England, about to be deserted of its MENKEN! And thrice happy E. T. SMITH to have secured her services for only a few nights!

But to continue:

"This graceful and classic actress is the first of all those who have appeared in the character of Mazeppa who has dared actually to ride on the bare-backed steed up the rakes of the theatre."

TOWN TALK.

BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY.

THE whitebait having been eaten, the season may be accounted virtually over. Of what was said and done at The Trafalgar on the occasion, though of course present, I am too modest to speak; but I may divulge, that the delicate little fish was fried, devilled, and souchied in deference to MR. GLADSTONE'S taste for triplets, while the sherry was all Amber(ley) in delicate compliment to the paternal affection of EARL RUSSELL. A few Innocents, in no sense important, remain to be massacred, and then the Herod-itory bondsmen of St. Stephen's will be free to depart and take a blow on the moors or wheresoever else they elect, until the time comes for them to be elected. TALKING of elections, I see Liskeard, the so-called " model borough -and no place ever deserved the title less-has been setting what I suppose we must call its wit to BERNAL OSBORNE's, and has come off a little the worse in the encounter. Until his time, since that of CHARLES BULLER, few small constituencies have been so lucky in getting little places and appointments from Government. It has in fact parted with its birthright for a good many spoonfuls of pottage, and is entirely in the hands of a few local legal luminaries, who eke out general practice with a political agency. Henceforth I suppose we shall hear nothing more of it; it has retired to the limbo of little constituencies. But the underhand way in which it has plotted against its last member is not a graceful act of retirement, and the new candidate, SIR ARTHUR BULLER, should lose no time in trying to prove non-complicity in the affair. He is not expected to possess his brother's genius, but he ought to keep the name untarnished by a suspicion of political larceny. In other respects he and his constituents are well matched, for they resemble the men who returned CHARLES BULLER as much as he resembles that clever statesman.

TRIAL by jury is no doubt a great institution, but it by no means follows that juries are what they should be. About the most flagrant act of injustice ever committed by a jury, was a decision arrived at by a special panel last week before the Chief Justice. A widow sued for damages for herself and children for the loss of her husband who was run over by an omnibus under circumstances of admitted neglect. The summing-up pointed out clearly, that though the poor fellow was crossing the road at an unexpected point; that even though it amounted to carelessness (which I can't admit, for surely one may cross a road anywhere)-was no reason why he should be run over. The jury after some delay returned a verdict for the plaintiff, damages forty shillings, or as they subsequently apportioned it-ten shillings for the loss of a husband, and thirty shillings for the loss of a father, the latter sum to be divided among several children. As CHIEF JUSTICE COCKBURN remarked, this is "too much or too little," and it was quite plain, as he further said, that the men who had taken an oath to administer justice had "evaded the responsibility of a satisfactory decision, and some of them being for a verdict of substantial damages, and others against it they had agreed to compromise." I hope such a verdict is unparalleled in the history of juries.

THE Coroner's inquest at Staplehurst has resulted in a verdict of manslaughter against BENGE and GILLIMORE. Under the circumstances nothing else could be expected, but I think the company has been exonerated on too easy terms. The rules and regulations are obviously very faulty, and the power given to an uneducated man like BENGE, over the lives and limbs of so many helpless travellers shows a blot in the system. Curiously enough all the precautions against accident prescribed by the rules are carefully ordered to be taken when they are obviously too late to be of service. One thing is clear:-not a rail should be disturbed until notice has been given at the station preceding on the line where repairs are required. A small battery with the means of attaching it to the telegraph wires, should be carried by every gang of plate-layers; the expense would be very small compared with the saving of life, and the operation so simple that a man who "mislooked the time table," could hardly make a blunder.

We trust our million readers will not misunderstand this. The distinguished paragraphist has only forgotten in his enthusiasm that the general public are unacquainted with hippodrome technicalities. He does not mean to say that MISS ADAH ISAACS MENKEN actually rides the bare-backed steed over those padded, scented, wigged, patentleathered, eye-glassed old (and young) roues who are supposed by some worthy but mistaken people to be found constantly behind the scenes of a playhouse. No! MISS ADAH ISAACS MENKEN, graceful, classic, and daring though she be, would shrink from such a cruel task. The word "rakes" signifies those raised and inclined platforms up and down which the bare-backed steed walks, or rather stumbles, with his fair burden on his back. The old fogies with the false teeth-suppose, in spite of the heat will be warmly supported by his friends "ghastly grinners in the booth of Vanity Fair," as THACKERAY Would have called them, are still safe-Mazeppa would not touch them with a horse-shoe, though he might, perhaps, with a horse-whip. But to continue the advertisement:

I SEE TOOLE, the inimitable, takes his benefit to-morrow, and I and admirers-at any rate he should be stoutly backed by those corpulent people, who having nearly fallen victims to the BANTING epidemic were restored-I may say, "brought round"-by the laughter he provokes. By the way, is the manager of the Olympic so occupied in prosecuting music halls, that he can't attend to the interests of that theatre, or does the company, joint-stock, disagree with the company theatrical? Twelfth Night, as revived here, does not seem to prevail on the British public to come, and might be plaintively advertised therefore as "What, you won't!" What has become of Mr. HENRY NEVILLE, and is the stock of French dramas exhausted, that we have no new and original pieces from Mr. TOM TAYLOR?

THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH IMPROVISATORES.-Ultimus SLOMANorum.