natic Hospital." He follows with
feeling municipal accessions, "purchase of a Road-scraper, which we find
a very useful machine, and probably money judiciously expended." But
more and more amazed at the circumstance as he continues he is left
totally in the dark as to where he is all the while.

Sometimes the mention, made necessary in connection with plans for some
public improvement, of a well-known river, say, revealed the town's
location. Occasionally the comparative antiquity of the civilisation
supplied inspiration for a good guess as to its situation--that it was
the town of that name in New England rather than the one in Oklahoma.
Multiplied clues of identity, again, built up a case: "Official Ballot"
(ran the title) "for Precinct W. Attleburough, Tuesday. Nov. 3, 1896."
The name "Wm. M. Olin" was given as that of the "Secretary of the
Commonwealth." Of the first page that was all. In heaven's name!
exclaimed the cataloguer, what commonwealth? A study of the list of
candidates on this ballot, giving their places of residence, however,
fortified one's natural supposition--"of Worcester, of Lynn, of
Haverhill, of Amherst, of Pittsfield" (ah!), "of Boston." It is a
reasonable surmise that this Ballot pertains to the commonwealth of
Massachusetts.

It is not here stated that the name of its native State is never
discovered in the whole of any American municipal document. Often, in
some indirect allusion, somewhere in the text it may be found.
Frequently, too, it is true, the State seal is printed upon the title
page or cover of the volume. And in instances the name of the State
stands out clearly enough upon the page of title. But in case after
case, in the occupation giving rise to this paper, the only expedient was
recourse to a file of city directories, collating names of streets in
these with those mentioned in the documents.

Another curious idiosyncrasy of one branch of public document--which
informs the labour of cataloguing them with something of the alluring
fascination of putting together jig-saw picture puzzles ("spoke," in the
words of Artemas Ward, "sarcastic") is the extraordinary variety of names
that can be found by municipalities to entitle the Mayor's annual
eloquence. This versatile character may deliver himself of an Annual
Address, Message, Communication, Statement, or of "Remarks."

A cataloguer was surprised to discover, in "An Act to Incorporate and
Vest Certain Powers in the