The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-11-20 00:00:00

,EMENT TO THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

government. Bill introduced for the total abolition
of the hat called " chimney-pot," with clauses regu-
lating the distance down the back at which a lady may
wear her bonnet. 1900: Grand aquatic fete, given by
the Temperance Society in celebration of their triumph
in having persuaded a cabman to take the pledge.—
Punch's Pocket Book.
A GENTLE HINT.—A few weeks a,,,r0 a milk-seller
living in the neighbourhood of Grantham, who was
noted for vending the article of the purest quality,
was awoke at two o'clock in the morning and told that
his best cow was choking. Of course he hastily
dressed himself, and repaired instanter to the field
where the animals were kept, but found them all
right. At daybreak, however, on proceeding to the
pump as usual, he found that the information was
correct, as some wags had inserted a turnip into the
spout.
BLUNDERS OF FRENCH TRANSLATORS.—The story
is well known of the French translator, who came to a
passage in which Swift says that the Duke of Marl-
borough broke an officer, and who, not knowing that
the expression meant dismissing a person from the
army, rendered the passage by the word roué, by
which it was conveyed that Marlborough broke the
poor man on the wheel. Another Frenchman gives
a not very delicate notion of Cibber's comedy of
" Love's Last Shift," by calling it La Derniere
Chemise de l' Amour. In like manner, a writer of
Congreve's life, missing a letter in the tragedy of the
"Mourning Bride," translated it l'Epouse du Matin,
" The Bride of Morning." But the most singular
mistaking of a book-title is that mentioned by
D'lsraeli, who declares that a modern French bibliopole
placed Edgeworth's " Essays on Irish Bulls" in a
catalogue of works on natural history, as if it had been
a treatise on horned cattle. A series of blunders
have been committed through a more pardonable
ignorance of English idioms. An early French editor
of Shakspeare's plays, not approving of his predecessor
Le Tourneur's paraphrastical version, boasted of giv-
ing a more faithful one. As one proof of his capa-
bilities for the task, he conveyed a most ridiculous
notion of the following couplet in the Earl of
Northumberland's celebrated speech in Henry IV.:--
"Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so no-begone..

The last words were paraphrased- thus :—ainsi,
douleur ! va-t' en, ! which, re-translated into English,
signifles—:" So, grief—be off with you !" In one of
Sir Walter Scott's novels, that favourite supper-dish,
" a Welsh rabbit," is mentioned. The French tran-
slator renders it literally by the words un lapin du
pays de Galles : adding, in note, that the wild
rabbits of the Welsh mountains have a peculiarly fine
flavour, which makes them to be uncommonly relished
throughout Great Britain.
WAITING FOB THE DEAD MAN'S SHOES.—During
the premiership of the Duke of Portland, a dissolution
of parliament and a general election took place. His
grace was, of course, zealous in his own cause, and was
assisting one of his friends in canvassing a certain
borough in the sonth-west of England. As usual on
similar occasions, his grace was "hail fellow, well met,"
with every voter who was still unpledged, and among
others, with one who was so charmed with his grace's
frankness and cordiality, that he whispered a secret
into the duke's ear, to the effect that the tide-waiter
was so old and feeble as scarcely to be up to the duties
of his office, and that he, the voter, thought it would
be a snug berth for himself, and hoped that, as his
grace had condescended to solicit him for his poor vote,
he would obtain the place for him, This promise Was
readily given, but it was better remembered by the re-
ceiver than by the giver, as promises generally are.
It is said that " they go long barefoot who wait for
dead men's shoes," but the tide-waiter died at last :
for although annuitants are as nearly perennial as
mortals can be, "nothing lasts for ever." Away posted
the expectant to London, to wait on the Duke of Port-
land, and demand the performance of the promise. It
happened to be the winter season, and in the middle of
a deep snow ; it also happened that the King of Spain
was sick and dying, and his decease was expected to
have considerable influence on European politics. On
the night when the west-country place-hunter arrived,
the duke was in expectation of despatches from Madrid,
and told his gentleman-in-waiting that if any one called,
to admit him, even if he (the duke) were gone to bed
or asleep. The duke's gentleman of course gave orders
to his own gentleman's gentleman, who, in turn, gave
iustructions to the porter. Accordingly, about mid-

night, a man was announced, who stated that he had
an important communication to deliver to his grace.
The valet at once admitted him, led him quietly up to
the duke's chamber, pushed open the door, and desired
him to enter. In another minute the elector was at
his patron's bedside. His grace, half asleep and half
awake, and believing the stranger to be the bearer of
tidings from Madrid, inquired, " What news ?"
" Please your grace," said the man, " I am come to tell
your grace that he is dead, and I come to get his
place, which your grace promised me." "To get his
place, you blockhead, what do you mean P what place,
whose place ?" " Why, the tide-waiter's," says the
man, in perfect amazement, for he thought be was on
such friendly terms with the duke, that the latter
would never forget him or his request. It is said, that
after heartily abusing the man for his unreasonable in-
trusion, the duke's fancy was so agreeably tickled with
the ludicrous incident, that he really did let him " step
into the dead man's shoes," by making him a tide-
waiter.—Home Companion.