CLERICAL ERRORS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5507, 29 November 1929, Page 2

CLERICAL ERRORS.

SOME COSTLY MISTAKES. It is now alleged that a typist’s error in the Elsie Walker mystery inadvertently changed the word “farm” into “train.” From time to time errors such as this creep into important documents (states the Dominion). Owing to an error of, one single comma in some new Customs regulations, United States was once forced to let in hundreds of thousands of pounds, worth of heavily-taxed goods duty free for a whole year. Only last August a clerical error was reported in the Young Plan. Too large a percentage, by some curious oversight, had been allotted to France. When the first 37 annuities allotted to France werp added up and divided to obtain an average, a mistake of nearly five millions sterling was made. Nobody could discover how the soulless calculating machine had done such a human thing. The mistake, however, caused a political flutter, because before it was discovered Britain and the smaller Powers, so it seemed, were burdened with most unfair quotas. Carelessness in the drawing of cheques cost a certain company a solid £BOOO. The cheque, made out for a £lOO, when presented had a figure “8” inserted, making a total of £BlOO. It was unhesitataingly honourer by the bank. In subsequent legal proceedings the judge decided in favour of the bank on account of gross carelessness on the part of the company. The space between the pound sign and the hundred, he said, was far too great, leaving ample room for the insertion of another figure. But there are other curious and often amusing mistakes that do not have such far-reaching consequences. A certain butcher surprised his customers with a large notice, stating “Wanted, a respectable boy for beef sausages !” Another shop, which evidently covered considerable ground, advertised, “ Breakfasts, dinners, and teas ; a hearse for hire.” Victor Hugo himself had at least one famous clerical error to his credit. In “The Toilers of the Sea,” he translated the Firth of .-the Forth in Scotland as “Premiere de la Quatrieme” — First of the Fourth. It was not until the book was translated into English that the error was discovered.