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COMMENT

"Our Queen Victoria"

A few days ago somebody prepared a message for telegraphing to Washington-to which President Lowell's signature was obtained-beginning: "In eighteen sixty-one, Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln joined to prevent war between England and America over the Trent affair." In the Herald, through a typographical error, the word "one" came out "our", so that it read: "In eighteen sixty our Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln," etc. But how any person of ordinary intelligence could suppose that the writer of any such message would put the possessive pronoun before the British Queen and omit it from Abraham Lincoln passes understanding. It is, however, true that the error is having a wonderful run. The Hon. Edward F. MsSweoney has, in a studied oration, alluded to the recreant attitude of people who refer to the late Empress of India as "our Queen Victoria." The Cambridge city council has resoluted against it, and from one end of the state to the other the changes will ring upon this transposition for some time to come.

The printer's trade is full of legends of this kind. There is small seat in the border state region, quite non-existent here, unknown as Dunkards. Some years ago the faithful telegraph operator transmitted an account of the convention of that body with an "r" carefully inserted where it would do the most good. The terrified desk man on one of the standard newspapers of Boston sent up copy showing that the drunkards of the United States numbered so many thousands, that their growth during the last decade had been marked; that they were to have a convention at Harrisburg, Pa,; that committees on promotion and publicity were being named, and that they were all going forth with proselytizing zeal to increase their members. The bewildered doeskin stood by his guns, respecting the printers' rule to "Follow copy even if it takes you out the window, as he sent to the compositors the story of the cohesiveness of the organized inebriates to the nation. But he took an inning in the first caption which he made to read; "What Next?"

We would respectfully commend to the enraptured orators, who are now appalled an American who can leave Abraham Lincoln unadorned, while claiming possession of the lady whom James Russell Lowell-according to the infamous and unauthorized interview of Julian Hawthorne-designated as "a snuffy old woman" the text of the old time headline writer, "What Next?" And for ourselves, a we read their feverish orations on this subject, destined to rend the air, we shall ask regarding their sources of dismay the same not impertinent question.-Boston Herald

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