t of Receipts and Expenditures for the Financial Year
Ending February 10, 1875, for the Town of Andover." Where, he asked,
with absolute certainty, was the town of Andover here referred to? He
examined the printer's imprint, which was explicit--personally: "Printed
by Warren F. Draper, 1875." There was something very friendly about
this. Printers of public documents seem to be an amiable, neighbourly
lot: "Printed at the Enterprise Office," one mentions casually in a
large, warm-hearted fashion. Another imprint reads, "Auburn, Printed by
Charles Ferris, _Daily Advertiser_ Office, 1848," Mr. Ferris, in his
lifetime, was evidently a very pleasant man, but a little careless of
what to him, no doubt, were inessential details. He was thoughtless of
the dark ignorance in places remote from Auburn of the _Daily
Advertiser_. Another prominent Auburnian of the same craft, one W. S.
Morse, it may be learned from some of the products of his press,
flourished in 1886. But, the puzzled cataloguer inquires, was Mr. Morse
successor to Mr. Ferris, or was he official printer to the Government of
Auburn, Maine, far from the scene of Mr. Ferris's public services,
possibly in Auburn, New York? To these picayune points the breezy
gentlemen make no reference.

The worker with public documents turns from the title pages to search the
documents themselves. Are these the "Proceedings of the Board of Chosen
Freeholders" of the City of Albany, Missouri, or of Albany, New
Hampshire? (A cataloguer has a faint impression that there is an Albany,
too, somewhere in the State of New York.) Is this a "Copy of Warrant for
Annual Town Meeting" of Lancaster, Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, or
Pennsylvania? Impossible, he thinks, that there should be no internal
evidence.

He reads on and on. He notes the intimate nature of an Article 19: "To
see if the town will accept a gift from Hannah E. Bigelow, with
conditions." He peruses "Selectman's Accounts" of expenditures, how
there was "Paid on account of Grammar School" such or such an amount; he
learns the cost of "Hay Scales," the expenses of "Fire Dep't, Cemetery,
Street Lamps." He peers behind the official scenes at Decoration Day:
monies paid out of the public treasury for "Brass Band, Address ($20.00),
flowers, flags, tuning piano." He goes over appropriations for "Repairs
at Almshouse." He sits with the "Trustees of Memorial Hall," and informs
himself concerning conditions at the "Lu