BLUNDERS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sill,—While enjoying the amusing blunders in which your correspondent " Examiner" finds consolation, and which he has kindly given us in the Spectator of July 14th, I think we in these Northern parts can "see him, and go one better" (ea they say at poker). At least, if they have not heard it, your readers will appreciate the following answer, which is vouched for by Mr. Ball, the able vice-president of the Liverpool Phildmathic Society :—" Examiner : Define a parable.— Examinee : A parable is a heavenly story with no earthly meaning." As I am pen in hand, let me thank you for another good laugh I have enjoyed over your artiole " Straw Hats and Dignity," a comment upon the announce- ment in the Daily Telegraph that " the County Court Judges have passed a new rule enabling them to wear straw hats in the hot weather without loss of dignity." Primed with the excellent fooling of your contributor, I started this afternoon- to visit a neighbour—a brother Judge—who I knew had gone up to the recent yearly meeting of our society, at which the rule in question must have been passed. I looked forward to a real treat in decanting on his almost venerable head some of the racy, good-natured chaff of your contributor as to the fabric which the Nonconformist conscience, the unruly members of local athletic clubs, and the chief tipster of the ' Boar and Blunderbuss,' will surely build upon the ribbons which must encircle our hats—for it would be, aa you say, positively disreputable to wear them ribbonless—in the hot months. Imagine my collapse then, when, in answer to my preliminary interrogatory, my learned brother replied with serene innocence "Hats ! no rule was passed or pro- posed as to hats. They weren't mentioned either at the meeting or at the dinner afterwards." I felt a sympathy at that moment with Peter Pindar's pilgrim, who took a journey to see the feather which had been moulted from the angel Gabriel's wing :— " But was it Gabriel's feather,—holy muses ! It was not Gabriel's feather, but a goose's."
It is by no means the first time that your contemporary with "the largest circulation in the world" has appeared in the plumage of that useful but unappreciated bird.—I am, Sir, &o.,
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