Many despise the poor tradesman's lot,
But to Thy Cross I flee.
Suddenly shifting then from poesy to prose, the circular continues:
A blessing.—May the blessings of God await you; may the bright sun of glory shine above thy bed; may the gates of plenty, honor, and happiness be ever open to thee; may no sorrow distress thy days, and when the dim curtain of death is closing around thy last sleep, and the lamp of life extinguishing, may it not receive one rude blast to hasten its extinction.
Thus having propitiated the æsthetic feeling as well as the benevolent heart of the householder, the circular proceeds to business by declaring that "the bearers are a party of unemployed tradesmen, who," etc. There is, of course, no resisting the appeal to buy the poem and the benediction; only, when Dora the doormaid is afterward questioned how many unemployed tradesmen formed the party, and she answers, "Only one, ma'am, and he's no tradesman," we look at each other as we do when "The Blind Man's Prayer" is given to us in the street car by some bright-eyed little girl, or some boy who meanwhile munches an apple. "It's my uncle," says the lad, if asked whether he is perhaps, the person alluded to in the lines, "You see before you a poor, blind man," etc.; and I fancy that the literature of mendicancy has now become important enough to furnish a large variety of printed forms, so that the regular customer can choose for himself whether in any particular season he will be a poor blind man, or a lady that has seen better days, or a party of poetical mechanics.
Philip Quilibet.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
THE SURVEY IN CALIFORNIA.