In the translation of The Conscript by Erckmann-Chatrian, the old botcher is turned into the old butcher.

Sometimes in attempting to correct a supposed blunder of another we fall into p 57a very real one of our own.  Thus a few years ago, before we knew so much about folk-lore as we do now, we should very probably have pointed out that Cinderella’s glass slipper owed its existence to a misprint.  Fur was formerly so rare and so highly prized that its use was restricted by sumptuary laws to kings, princes, and persons holding honourable offices.  In these laws sable is called vair, and it has been asserted that Perrault marked the dignity conferred upon Cinderella by the fairy’s gift of a slipper of vair, a privilege confined to the highest rank of princesses.  It is further stated that by an error of the printer vair was changed into verre.  Now, however, we find in the various versions which have been collected of this favourite tale that, however much the incidents may differ, the slipper is almost invariably made of some rigid material, and in the earliest forms the unkind sisters cut their feet to make them fit the slipper.  This unpleasant incident was omitted by Perrault, but he kept the rigid material and made the glass slipper famous.

The Revisers of the Old Testament p 58translation have shown us that the famous verse in Job, ``Oh that mine adversary had written a book,’’ is wrong; but it will never drop out of our language and literature.  The Revised Version is certainly much more in accordance with our ideas of the time when the book was written, a period when authors could not have been very common:—­

 ``Oh that I had one to hear me! 
   (Lo, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me;)
   And that I had the indictment which mine adversary hath written! 
   Surely I would carry it upon my shoulder;
   I would bind it unto me as a crown.’’

Silk Buckingham drew attention to the fact that some translations of the Bible had been undertaken by persons ignorant of the idioms of the language into which they were translating, and he gave an instance from an Arabic translation where the text ``Judge not, that ye be not judged’’ was rendered ``Be not just to others, lest others should be just to you.’’

The French have tried ingeniously to p 59explain the difficulty contained in St. Matthew xix. 24, ``It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,’’ by affirming that the translators mistook the supposed word gr kmilos>, a rope, for gr kmhlos>, a camel.

The humours of translation are numerous, but perhaps the most eccentric example is to be found in Stanyhurst’s rendering of Virgil, published in 1583.  It is full of cant words, and reads like the work of a madman.  This is a fair specimen of the work:—­