“The Cattle of the Boyne”
Reading edition
I have referred before to the frequency of misprints in the penny Times. It does seem a pity that the conductors of the paper cannot keep it up to its old traditions in this respect. Last week there was a more curious instance than usual. These words appeared:
“The anniversary of the Cattle of the Boyne was celebrated with unusual enthusiasm throughout Canada.”
I was so moved by the report of these zoological novelties that I made a little poem about them, full of Celtic twilight. It runs thus:
THE SANDS OF BOYNE Och, Geoffrey, go and call the Cattle home, And call the Cattle home, And call the Cattle home, Acrost the sands of Boyne. Shure, ye’re the bhoy that’s got inured to foam, So come, bring in the koine. Och, are they fish, flesh, fowl or good red herrings? Perhaps they are red herrings, Forlorn and wildered herrings, Strayed from their native broine, This hapless party which has lost its bearings Fornint the sands of Boyne. No, no, they have no herring for their father. The proof-reader’s their father, A most prolific father By mishap or desoign. If this is what wan penny means, I’d rather Stump up the ancient coin Than daily find—Och tempora, Och Times!— Bad grammar in my Times And misprints in my Times In ivry other loine, Capped by this worst of typographic crimes “The CATTLE of the Boyne”!
But perhaps one ought not really to complain of misprints, even in the Times, when they are funny.