13 FEBRUARY 1904, Page 16

AUTHENTIC BLUNDERS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIE,—A clerical friend assures me that at a National school in Radnorshire the curate asked one of the boys to finish the text beginning "These wait all upon thee "; and the boy answered "that thou mayest give them meat from New Zealand." This seems to me interesting, as illustrative alike of the popularity of imported meat and of the pitfalls that beset oral instruction. The following malapropism has also reached me on good authority. A vicar complained to an old woman in his parish about a dung-heap that stood in front of her cottage ; did she not herself find it a nuisance ? "No, Sir, I'm manured to it."—I am, Sir, &c.,