STATUE BLUNDERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 107, 12 November 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

STATUE BLUNDERS.

Most egregious blunders are often perpetrated on public monuments where one would think the,utmost care would be taken to guard agiih«t them. When the statue to the Duke of Camridge, for instaAe, wbieh alands in the middle of Whitehall, opposite the War Offioe, was unveiled, ii was found that its inscription simply bristled with errors.

Curiously enough, the memorial to the duke in the Guard's Chapel was similarly mistake-haunted. The name " George," by which he was best known, was omitted; "division" dropped one of its "i's"; and "commanded" appeared instead of "commander." Yet nobody noticed these solecisms until King Edwart's eagle eye spotted them. A bust was placed in the Law Courts some years ago in memory of that great divorce judge, Lord St. Helier. One would have thought lawyers would have been the last men in the world to let an inscription go unrevised, yet they proved even as other men. He was described as "C.C.8.," when there "ain't no sich" honour; and, more amazing still, he was described as President of the Admiralty Division! Exeter is rightly proud of its equestrian monument to the fine Devonian, Sir Redvers Buller, but it suffered from a perfect epidemic of mistakes when it was first unveiled. On it appears a list of the battle honours of the 60th King's Own Rifle Corps, and there the carver came a cropper. He spelt Salamanca, "Salamanoa"; Toulouse was given a double "o"; and Vimiera appeared in the disguise of "Vimieta." Quite lately, when the statue of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannennan was unveiled in Westminster Abbey, it was found that the letter-carver had made that statesman three years too young, for he was born in 1836, and the inscription turned the 6ix into a nine!