SOME AMUSING “PRINTERS’ ERRORS.”

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143787, 10 May 1912, Page 5

SOME AMUSING “PRINTERS’ ERRORS.”

When Mr. Chamberlain once had a particularly enthusiastic greeting at a political meeting, we were told that

"tho vast concourse rent the air with their snouts.” But there is no limit to the enormities ior which a single changed or misplaced letter may oe responsible. One compositor converted

“the masses” into “them asses.” Another contemptuously referred to facts worth “noting” as "worth nothing”; and a third caused a Roman Senator, when asking tor ms "toga,” to exclaim, in vulgar, modern parlance, "Bring me my togs I” “Blank’s preserves,” one can quite Relieve, “are not. to be beaten” ; but a different complexion was put on them by the compositor who considered the "b” redundant, and set up the words, "Blank's preserves are not to lie eaten” ; and when Mrs. A. S. Boyd wrote in one of her books, "she stuffed paper into the grate,” she was naturally horrified when she road tho innocent cremation iyi its printed form—"she stalled papa into the grate.” A public company was similarly made to invite sutecnptioii for “six thousand To snares:” 1 ; and by an inversion ot two letters, the words in Isaiah; "Sin no more,” were once made a brazen invitation to "Sin on more.”

But even such humours as these are quite eclipsed by what are technically known as “mixes,” produced by the accidental running together of different items of news and distinct paragraphs, whicli should have begun on separate lines. Tims, in one newspaper the description of a street brawl and a church fnnctipn resulted in this delightful confusion: “The crowd then proceeded to indulge in language of a profane and obscene character. The Very Rev, bean R. preached on the occasion, and the. service was fully choral,” In another paper we read: “The largo castiron wheel revolving nine hundred times a minute exploded in that city yesterday after a long and painful illness.” But quite the richest gem in the cabinet of “mixes” is tho jumbled account of the presentation of a goldheaded cane to a Dr. Aludge, and of a patent pig-killing and sausage-making machine whicli had been exhibited in his parish. This delicious mixture, which is too long for quotation in full, opens thus; “Several of the Rev. Dr. AJudge’s friends called upon him yesterday, and after a conversation, tho unsuspecting pig was seized by the hind leg and slid along a beam until be reached the hot water tank. His friends explained the object of their visit, and presented him with a very handsome gold-headed butcher, who grabbed him hv the tail, swung him round cut his throat from car to ear. and in less than a minute the onron.se was in water. Theieupon he oame forward and .said that ihere were times when the feelings overpowered one, and for that reason he mold not do morn than thank those around him fm the manner in which such a lingo animal was out into fragments.”— Liverpool Courier.