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Show Tlod His Hume to a Grasshopper. Miss Cooper, a daughter of the novelist, novel-ist, James Fenimore Cooper, states that wiion in Paris she saw a iY?!ich translation transla-tion of her father's tale, "The Spy," in ' which there were several mistakes, but ono of them wa.a such that it was almost incredible that any one could possibly liave been guilty of it. The residence of Mr. Wharton, one of the characters who figure in tho story, is spoken of by the author as "Tho Locusts." Now, the translator had evidently been ignorant of the circumstance of there being any species of trees bearing this name. Having, therefore, looked up the word in his dictionary, and finding the defiui- tion to be given as "Les Sauterelles" grasshoppers thus he rendered it in the text. Presently, however, he came across a paragraph in the novel in which it was stated that a visitor to the house of Mr. Wharton had tied his horse to a locust. Then it might bo naturally supposed that tho translator would at once have discovered his error. Not a hit of itl His reasoning would appear to have been somowhat on a parity with that of a celebrated cele-brated countryman of his, when he declared de-clared that "if the facts do not agree with tho theory, so much the worse for the facts." Nevertheless, the writer seems to have been conscious that some explanation was due of so extraordinary a statement as t hat a horsemau had secured his steed to a grasshopper. So ho went on gravely to inform his readers that iu America these insects grow to an enormous size, and that in this case one of these, dead and stuffed, had been stationed at the door of tho mansion for the convenience of the visitors on horseback! Bookmark. |