The wants of the majority of advertisers are intelligible enough; but it needs some special knowledge to understand what may be meant by the good people who hanker for a portable mechanic, an efficient handwriter, a peerless feeder, a first-class ventilator on human hair-nets, a practical cutter by measure on ladies’ waists, a youth used to wriggling, and a boy to kick Gordon. Nor is the position required by a respectable young lady as ‘figure in a large establishment,’ altogether clear to our mind; and we may be doing injustice to the newspaper proprietor requiring ‘a sporting compositor,’ by inferring he wants a man clever alike at ‘tips’ and types. It does not say much for American theatrical ‘combinations,’ that the managers of one of them ostentatiously proclaim: ‘We pay our salaries regularly every Tuesday; by so doing, we avoid lawsuits, are not compelled to constantly change our people, and always carry our watches in our pockets.’ Neither would America appear to be quite such a land of liberty as it is supposed to be, since a gentleman advertises his want of a furnished room where he can have perfect independence; while we have native testimony to our cousins’ curiosity in a quiet young lady desiring a handsome furnished apartment ‘with non-inquisitive parties;’ and a married couple seeking three or four furnished rooms ‘for very light housekeeping, where people are not inquisitive.’ Can it be the same pair who want a competent Protestant girl ‘to take entire charge of a bottled baby?’ If so, their anxiety to abide with non-curious folk is easily comprehended. Very whimsical desires find expression in the advertising columns of the day. A lady of companionable habits, wishing to meet with a lady or gentleman requiring a companion, would prefer to act as such to ‘one who, from circumstances, is compelled to lead a retired life.’ A stylish and elegant widow, a good singer and musician, possessing energy, business knowledge, and means of her own, ready, ‘for the sake of a social home,’ to undertake the supervision of a widower’s establishment, thinks it well to add, goodness knows why, ‘a Radical preferred.’ Somebody in search of a middle-aged man willing to travel, stipulates for a misanthrope with bitter experience of the wickedness of mankind; displaying as pleasant a taste as the proprietor of a wonderful discovery for relieving pain and curing disease without medicine, who wants a partner in the shape of a consumptive or asthmatical gentleman.