Monsieur le Chevalier De La Ruse, Officer of the Legion of Honour, Surgeon-Dentist to Prince Pückler-Muskau, his Majesty the King of Abissynnia, Mehemet Ali, and most of the illustrious personages at Madame Tussaud's, has just arrived in London, and is to be consulted in Great RusselStreet, Bloomsbury, every day between the hours of ten and four.

For the practice of dental surgery the Chevalier is eminently qualified, his professional education having been of a first-rate character.

He became at a very early age connected with a company of mountebanks, among whom he acquired the art of balancing ladders on his chin, standing on his head, and dancing on the tight-rope. He then turned his attention to legerdemain, of which art he was soon an itinerant professor. So great was his dexterity therein, that he was never known to fail in his performances but once, when he was detected in the act of extracting a handkerchief from a gentleman's pocket. This circumstance occasioned his temporary retirement from public life: it threw him, however, into the society of kindred spirits, to the considerable enlargement of his stock of ideas, and his no small improvement in mechanical skill.

On his egress from the correctional establishment to which he had been consigned, he became an assistant to a billiard-room, where he had frequent opportunities, of which he amply availed himself, of exercising, greatly to his emolument, his manual adroitness.

The concern with which he had connected himself having been suppressed by the police, he for a short time devoted his leisure, which was now considerable, to public performances on the hand-organ, and subsequently to the management and exhibition of a puppet-show.

It would be unfair, even were it possible, to unveil all the mysteries of the Chevalier's practice. The following modes, however, which he has invented, of extracting teeth, may be mentioned, as he has

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already displayed them publicly, and as they will, no doubt, serve to exemplify his extraordinary genius. Their principal recommendation is, that while always effectual, they are as slightly as possible painful to the patient, and calculated, at the same time, highly to divert the looker on.

If the tooth to be extracted is situated in the upper jaw, M. De La Ruse seats the patient on a chair, himself standing opposite to him. He next secures the tooth with a long pair of tongs, which he fixes in their position by a screw like that of a hand-vice. Then placing his heel under the patient's chin, and holding the handle of the instrument in both hands, he suddenly, by a simultaneous extension

of the leg and flexion of the arms, effects the desired result; himself, from a trifling excess in the power applied to the fulcrum, rolling with the tongs and tooth one way, and the patient another; both, most likely, head over heels; a sight very laughable to behold.

Or, should the tooth to be extracted be a grinder of extraordinary size and strength, he attaches thereto as stout an iron chain as he conveniently can, the other end of which is fastened to a large bullet. The patient reclines, head downwards, on a couch constructed for the purpose, at an angle of forty-five.

The bullet is then rammed into a blunderbuss, which the Chevalier fires, taking aim at a target elevated in a convenient situation, or which any gentleman or lady present, who pleases, is at liberty to hold up; M. De La Ruse engaging to lodge the bullet, with the chain and tooth depending therefrom, infallibly, in every instance, in the very centre of the bull's-eye.

The locality of the intended operation being the lower jaw, the Chevalier causes the person to sit in a chair by the side of a column ten feet high, which he assures the public is filled with teeth which he has had the honour of taking out of crowned heads. He then affixes to the tooth, secundum artem, a strong cord let down from a winch, or windlass, situated at the top of the column. These preliminaries having been adjusted, he ascends the column, and with one wrench of the engine, dislocates either the tooth or jaw.

Sometimes he substitutes for the windlass a block, or pulley, fastening a hundred weight to each of the patient's feet; having, in one instance, before he had learned to take this precaution, pulled a gentleman up in the air, where he hung kicking for some minutes before his tooth came out, much more to the amusement of the spectators than to his own.

For persons of quality and distinction, he has erected in his surgery a handsome gibbet of gilt marble, in the style of Louis Quatorze, the supporters being fluted Corinthian columns, and the cross-beam being represented by a magnificent entablature. The platform is covered with a rich Turkey carpet. A

silken cord, of sufficient strength, connects the tooth with a silver chain, which hangs by a hook of the same material from underneath the architrave. The lady or gentleman being then placed in the requisite position by M. Le Chevalier, an assistant below withdraws a bolt, and the trap falling, the tooth remains suspended amid the cheers of the company. The drop being two feet, there is no fear of resistance from the most obstinate molar, even if adherent to its socket; for such is the force of the fall, that if it bore on the jaw itself, it would assuredly snap it asunder.

So suddenly are the above operations effected, that their performance is scarcely felt. Should any person, however, be deterred, by scepticism on this point, from submitting himself to the Chevalier's treatment, M. De La Ruse will be happy to Mesmerise him before hand.

HABITS, TASTES, AND AMUSEMENTS.

Habits may be considered weaknesses with the old man, or irregularities with the man of ripe age, but with the young man they are ever defects.

A grimace which is often repeated seldom fails to become a habit, and habits eventually degenerate into manias. Habits and manias, then, may be considered rather as diseases, or infirmities, than peculiar and ridiculous symptoms of different minds or characters. As maladies generally demand sympathy, and not censure, we should have avoided touching upon this class if some examples were not decidedly within the bounds of the ridiculous.

That, for instance, of an old man puffing and blowing after young girls to do the gallant, when he is old enough to be their grandfather.

That of not being able to eat when the place one usually occupies at table is taken. by another.

That of not being able to sleep in any other bed but one's own, which makes travelling a very serious and difficult affair.

That of never being able to take a nap except when reading one's newspaper; a habit

that is not very complimentary to the editor.

Dancing is a taste with some, an amusement with others, but with all 't is cared for less of itself, than from its being frequently the means of which love and its delights are the end and aim.

Who can have failed remarking its ridiculous effects upon certain victims of avowed passions or secret