The pitch of excellence to which the gardens have arrived has naturally resulted in drawing the increased attention of the public towards them. We have only to contrast, for instance, the number of people who entered in the year 1848--the first in which a more liberal system of management came into play--with those who passed in in 1854, to see that the establishment flourishes under the auspices of the new management; for while in the former year only 142,456 persons passed through the turnstiles, the number had risen in the latter to 407,676. It is interesting to observe that, although an increase of full 100 per cent. took place upon the privileged and ordinary shilling visitors during that interval, yet that the reduction of the admittance-charge to sixpence on Mondays and holidays was the main cause of the gradual influx of visitors--the year 1848 showing only 60,566 admittances of these holiday-folks and working-people, to 196,278 in 1854. Here, then, we have an increase of 135,712 persons, many of whom were, no doubt, rescued, on those days at least, from the fascinations of the public-house. With all this flood of life--the greater portion of it undoubtedly belonging to the labouring-classes,--not the slightest injury has been done to the gardens. A flower or two may have been picked, but not by that class of Englishmen who were once thought too brutal to be allowed access unwatched to any public exhibition. Every year that passes over our heads proves that such shows as these are splendid examples of the method of teaching introduced by Bell and Lancaster; that they furnish instruction of a nature which is never forgotten, and which refines at the same time that it delights. RATS. Boswell relates that the wits who assembled at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds to hear Grainger's poem on the "Sugar-cane" read in manuscript, burst into laughter when, after much pompous blank-verse, a new paragraph commenced with the invocation-- "Now, Muse, let's sing of rats."