THE FRENCH LANGUAGE.

Press, Volume XVIII, Issue 2490, 24 April 1871, Page 3

THE FRENCH LANGUAGE.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE PBESS. SIR,—I notice a letter in the Lyttelton Times of Saturday, signed " The French persou who wrote the address " [to his Excellency the Governor in Akaroa.] He accuses hoth " School Boy " and mc of finding fault with the address and reply, and calls us " low-minded individuals who have attempted to turn the Queen's representative to ridicule." Nothing can be more absurd than such a charge; it simply furnishes another example of "the manner in which the Times tries to wriggle out e£ a difficulty. If " The French person who wrote the address" can understand plain English, which he appears to do from his letter ■(though, by the way, his logic is of that kind peculiar to the Lyttelton Times, in which conclusions generally rebel against premises, and vice versa), he must see that " School Boy " distinctly absolved both him and the Governor from any share in the blunders committed by the Times, while I simply pointed out that the Times had committed thirty-one gross mistakes in fifty lines, and that no one was to blame for those mistakes but the editor, who afterwards tried to shuffle out of the difficulty by laying the blame on the shoulders of Capt. Pitt. I send yon an extract from the Wellington Evening Post alluding to the same thing. I notice also that the Lyttelton Times has of late repeatedly alluded to schoolmasters or "ushers" as it sneeringly terms them. His recollections of them may possibly not be of the most pleasant kind. Might I be allowed to suggest to the editor of the Times that he engage the services of one of those gentlemen—l do not mean one who has undergone the mental whitewashing peculiar to Government training schools at home, hat one who has had the fortune to receive what the Times or "Argus" chooses to sneer at —a college training, and possibly the next French or classical quotation printed in the Times will not contain a gross blunder in nearly every line. My word \ if I made such a mull of my exercises shouldn't I catch it, but what a jolly lark it will be when I leave school to spite the old fellows by false spelling and false quantities. Yours, &cAnother School-Boy. A rather amusing squabble has just occurred between the Christchurch papers, caused by a cirenmstance arising out of the Governor's recent * visit. It appears that & : r George Bowen went to Akaroa. and vbile there received an address from the French inhabitants, written in their own kaguage, which he also used in replying to »t. The address and reply were published in the Press and Lytteltou Times simultineonsly, in the former journal correctly; in the latter, full of errors. Two letters afterwards .appeared in the Pr£s* signed " School poy," and "Another School Boy," pointin? out no fewer than thirty-one mistakes in fifty lines, and asserting that as his-Excellency *** correct, and the Frenchmen knew their langnage, the errors must lie with the time*. That journal thereupon waxed

ceedingly wroth, and indulged in a tirade of abuse against the Press's correspondents in general, and the two school boys in particular, winding up with ah assurance "that the copy of the Akaroa memorial was referred for revision to Captain Pitt, and printed word for word as received from him. Therefore, his Excellency's •" Aide' is responsible for the alleged errors of language and not ourselves." This is rather a mean way of getting out of the difficulty, but it is quite in accordance with the usual style of Vogel worshippers.