" HOWLERS."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Snt.—The following examples of Continental English may interest your readers :—Over a letter-box in Paris: " Intorpreturs Spot- ring all Languages—Letters Box." In a shop window in Paris : "Here one spikes the English" (this was before the days of the Entente Cordiale!). On a charity collecting-box in Cologne Rail- way Station, as a translation of " Fur unheilbare Kranken ": " For Incurable Ills." A Spanish gentleman always alluded to his wife as " My Hoosband," while the lady in question, before her marriage, referred to her fiancé as " My Bethrotted." A German waiter at a summer resort recommended to the writer "some nice houses upstairs (oben) on the hill," and also " by •the river down." A German lady, self-taught in English, always met one with a friendly smile, but with the disconcerting salutation : "Oh, Good-bye ! "—I am, Sir, he., J. C. J. S.
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