we cannot procure.
Sad distress has been our lot,
To go from door to door.

May want upon you never frown,
Nor in your dwelling come;
May Heaven pour its blessings down
On every friendly soul.

Lord Jesus, thou hast shed thy blood
For thousands such as we;
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 aesthetic 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.

In Lieutenant Wheeler's report of operations on the geographical and
geological survey of the Territories west of the 100th meridian during
1876, we find the first explanation of the origin of the name
California. The mountainous country of Mexico has three climates
through which the traveller passes in going from the sea to the high
country, the hot, the temperate, and the cold zones. The Mexicans call
them _tierra caliente_, _tierra templada_, and _tierra