An Extraordinary Blunder.

Feilding Star, Volume XX, Issue 62, 12 September 1898, Page 2

An Extraordinary Blunder.

An extraordinary, but very fnnny, blunder bas been committed by the Foreign Office, writes the London correspondent of the Otago Daily Times. A parliamentary paper has just been presented to the House of Commons containing Sir Claude Macdonald's memorandum to tbe Chinese Government, or Tsung li-Yamen. Right in the middle of tbis important State document there appear the following singular paragraphs : " Strictly speaking tbis is not grammar. ' China ' has not been mentioned, only ' Chinese possession ' and ' Chinese Government,' neither of which are of tbe feminine gender. ' Hers ' can only refer in the ordinary rules of grammar, to Great Britain. However, I suppose we must not be pedantic, but must leave Sir C. Macdonald and tbe Yamen to nse bad gram mer if they prefer." Everbody was thunderstruck to read tbis curious intercalated commentary, which at first seemed inexplicable. But it soon leaked out tbat those re>> marks were Lord Salisbury's own sarcastic criticisms noted on the margin, and were printed with the rest by pure mistake on the part of tbo compositors. What makes tbe thing more screamingly funny is the fact that Lord Salisbury, in jibing at Sir Claude Macdonald's grammar, has been guilty of a still more serious grammatical lapse himself. Fancy such a literary swell writing " neither of which are I"