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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 11, 12 September 1861, Page 3

Romantic Career of a Woman. —A district visitor in the metropolis has forwarded to the Times the following strange history of a woman who is under his spiritual care. There is at this time living in the neighborhood of Middlesex Hospital a woman, 75 years of age, named Barnes. Sheridan knew her as a child, and persuaded her father, a baker in Bond-street, to apprentice her at the age of 14 to Mrs. Jordan, who trained her to play Little Pickles, in the “ Spoilt Child,” and other minor characters. At 16 she married-John Simonds, a seaman of the Culloden , and accompanied him to the West Indies, under Sir Edward Pellew (Lord Exmouth). She was with her husband in the MarSj at Trafalgar, and assisted in the last offices to Captain Duff, who was killed early in the action. Her husband himself was killed later in the day, leaving her with four sons. In 1808 she married Henry Bevan, a soldier in the 42nd, and went with the regiment to the Peninsula, where she again became a mother. The child was killed in her arms during the retreat on Corunna, and her husband fell in the celebrated charge of the 50th and 42nd which drove the French from the field. She attended on Sir John Moore during his last moments, and was at his funeral. Here Captain Murray, the present Lord Dun more's great uncle, was so_ struck with her youth and distress, that he to'ld her if ever she was in difficulties to apply to him ; and he kept his promise to assist her until his decease in 1859, since which time she has been friendless. After leaving the Peninsula she became lady’s maid to Mrs. Spencer Smith, wife of the English-ambassador at Constantinople, and on their way there the women were taken prisoners in Italy. The mistress escaped with a very mild form of bondage, but Murat sent the maid to the hulks at Toulon for six months. Of her four sons by the first marriage, two were killed in the Queen Charlotte at Algiers ; the third fell in the 23rd Regiment, in one of Lord

Gough’s actions in India ; and the fourth, in the 11th Hussars, in the cavalry charge at Balaklava. By her third husband, who is also dead, she has had three sons and a daughter. Of these the eldest was lost overboard from Lord Proby's frigate, off Malta ; the second and third in a collier, on their way from Shields ; and the daughter died in service of an English lady in the South of France. Mrs. Barnes is now, therefore, at the age of 75, alone. She is almost destitute and quite helpless, for she fell, on her way home from Major Murray’s during the winter before his death, and broke her arm. Application has been made to his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief to ascertain if she is eligible for a pension, and it appears that she is not; so that here is a woman who may be said to have given the lives of two husbands and six children to the service of her country, and whom it has pleased Providence to bereave of all other kin, but for whom it would seem that her country has nothing in return.

Keenan’s Better Half. —A Sensation at the Theatre. —There is a decided at-tx-action at the theatre now in the person of Adah Isaacs Menken, widely known as a lady of considerable literary taste, and an accomplished actress, but who has, perhaps, acquired her greatest, notoriety as the wife of John C. Heenan, the “Benecia Boy,” whose valour she has immortalised in verse, and •whom, even though he has deserted her, she still claims to be the “bravest of the brave.”

Adah is a very pretty and intellectual lady, with a degree uf romance and independence in her disposition rarely possessed in one of her sex. Like Lola Montoz, she does pretty much as she likes in all things, affecting the utmost contempt for those restrictions and conventionalities of every-day life beyond the bounds of which “common folks” would not think of passing. She has commanded a military company in her time, smokes cigarettes with all the grace of a Spanish Senora, has had four or five husbands, and is good looking and captivating enough to secure half-a-dozcu more yet. She does nothing by halves. When she dances, she dances as Taglioni or Fanny Ellsler ones did—that is, to the extreme of the art. Such dancing the people of Pitsburgh have' not been accustomed to, and, like difficult music, they scarcely appreciate it sufficiently, though there is no misunderstanding the emotions which the instruments with which her terpischorean efforts are effected to inspire. Monday night was her first essay on our boards, and when she swung herself over the orchestra, like an “impending crisis,” the galleries came down handsomely, while the parquets went off in an ecstacy of delight. She does nothing by halves, stops at nothing, and cares for nobody, unless it be her dear “Beuecia Boy.” —Pitsburg Evening Chronicle. Ox Beauty ix Legs. —As a rule, good men have good legs. Crooked leg, crooked mind ; that is one of my mottoes, and one which I have very seldom found to be in fault. \our dear papa had a prejudice against tailors. lam more tolerant, and yet I cannot help thinking that they get warped from twisting their legs beneath them, as they are in the habit of doing. What dreadful legs some of our most atrocious criminals have had. The infamous Burke, my dear, who pitch-plastered people to death before you were horn, and sold their bodies to the surgeons, had the very worst pair of bow-legs that ever were seen. Look what spoiling theT leg; by sitting tailor-fashion has brought the Turks to. In my young days, a tight leg was a pretty accurate sign of a gentleman ; in your young days, the loose, or pegtop, leg is fashionable. People who wear tight trousers now-a-days arc either dancing masters, waiters, actors, or sporting characters, and prize-fighters, ostlers, and omnibus conductors. But, ah me ! what exquisitely turned legs and feet I have seen in the days when the aristocracy wore white kerseymere smalls, silk-stockings, and pumps. Ido not object to your studying the extremities of the opposite sex with sufficient assiduity; for next to a man’s heart and morals, you should institute a rigid enquiry into the condition of his legs. Never mind the ridiculous American purists, who who are too modest to call a spade a spade and a leg a leg, and nicknaming them “ supporters” go straightway to devise the absurd and immodest Bloomer costume’ giving rise, ns it does, to ribald comments from men on a part of a lady’s dress with which they have no business, and ought to know nothing aboui. But yon are a brave English girl, and as you see hundreds of men’s legs every day, you have a right to study, to observe, and to form your opinions on them.

If cheese comes after meat, what comes after cheese ?—hike.