raced these columns, we have said
enough to satisfy our readers.' The Mormon Hill _Quartz Crusher_
relieved this simple directness with more fancy: 'We don't know why
Messrs.---- & Co. send us, under the title of "Selections of Californian
Poetry," a quantity of slum-gullion which really belongs to the sluices
of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the rural districts. We have
sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings through our stamps,
but never of the grade of the samples offered, which, we should say,
would average about 33-1/3 cents per ton. We have, however, come across
a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked by the serene ass
who has compiled this volume. We copy it with pleasure, as it has
already shone in the "Poet's Corner" of the _Crusher_ as the gifted
effusion of the talented Manager of the Excelsior Mill, otherwise known
to our delighted readers as "Outcrop."' The Green Springs _Arcadian_ was
no less fanciful in imagery: 'Messrs.---- & Co. send us a gaudy
green-and-yellow, parrot-coloured volume, which is supposed to contain
the first callow "cheepings" and "peepings" of Californian songsters.
From the flavour of the specimens before us we should say that the nest
had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to be a good deal of the
parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and we congratulate our own
sweet singer "Blue Bird," who has so often made these columns melodious,
that she has escaped the ignominy of being exhibited in Messrs.---- &
Co.'s aviary.' I should add that this simile of the aviary and its
occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir was relentlessly
slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn with feathers! The big
dailies collected the criticisms and published them in their own columns
with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. The book sold
tremendously on account of this abuse, but I am afraid that the public
was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms, and not in
any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace collection,
and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And it will be
observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the omission
rather than the retention of certain writers.

[Illustration: THE BOOK SOLD TREMENDOUSLY]

But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of this singular
demonstration. I do not think that the publishers were at all troubled
by it; I cannot conscientiously say that _I