The Spectator

A reader’s letter from The Spectator, 12 September 1914: [To the Editor of The Spectator] Sir, I am afraid your correspondent "Ex-Scholar" (Spectator, September 5th), in quoting a "howler," has committed a little one himself. The incident of the sacred chickens to which he alludes did not take place in the "first sea fight between Romans and Carthaginians," nor was Duilins the commander who flouted the State system of auguries. It was Claudius Pulcher who (as the Romans thought, in consequence of his blasphemy) was defeated in 249 B.C. by the Carthaginians under Adherbal off Drepana (Lilybaeum) in Sicily. It was his sister, a true scion of the arrogant Clandian stock, who, incommoded by the crowds leaving the games, said : "Oh that my brother were alive and in command of our ships!

From The Spectator, 12 September 1914: The King's message addressed "To the Governments and Peoples of My Self-Governing Dominions," published to the world on Wednesday, is noble in its sincerity of word and thought. What could be said better or with a truer dignity than the following: ‘Had I stood aside when, in defiance of pledges to which my kingdom was a party, the soil of Belgium was violated and her cities laid desolate, when the very life of the French nation was threatened with extinction I should have sacrificed my honour and given to destruction the liberties of my Empire and of man- kind. I rejoice that every part of the Empire is with me in this decision.