New-York tribune., 1873-07-31
A DILL SITINDLE.


majority are to be fooled, they must wonder,
like the British General amid the treasures of
India, at their own forbearance. What is the
uso of telling the truth at all is probably
the question which rises to their minds when
they see how much moro marketable arc their
lies: A man goes to Minnesota, calls himself
Z Lord, assumes name not III the peefage,
says that his sister wants few thousand
acres of land to found a charitable institution,
and the banks and railroads of the State are
at once at his feet. If his inventions had
been reasonable no one would have believed
him. 1t requires more ingenuity and SdUOir
Jaire to get credit for glass of gin than to
get q loan of thousand dollars. This frantic
passion for being swindled is by no means
confined to Americans. An escaped convict
from Germany laid the whole diplomatic body
| in Washington under contribution, including
Baron Gerolt and Chevalier Hulsemann, simply
| bycaling himself Count Schweinitz-Krain, Ad-
iutant to the Archduke Maximilian. He lived
in great gala for a month or So and his sue
cess seemed to turn his own brain, for he is
now in a mad-house. A Hungarian named
Estvan, who had lived in New-YOrk some
| time, went back to Vienna and pillaged the
Hebrew bankers of that city on the strength
Of the prepOsterous claim that he was Consul
| General of the United States in Holland
| "and Chief of Secret Service to the Emperor
"of MexicOn They obeyed the mOnastic for
mula of faith, and believed because it was i'm
possible.
But in literature the adventurcrs have easier
work than in finance. Let a man, or more
especially woman, claim to have written
something which belongs to some one else,
and the very fact of the claim being false
will be enough to gain it credit among half
the people who read newspapers Mrs. Akers
will never again take any comfort out of her
pretty lyric Rock me to Sleep" since gen.
tleman in Newark, who does not know the
difference between the movements of anapests
and dactyls, has brought affidavits to prove
he wrote it. Mr.. Carleton, who has
written dozen farm ballads al of
the same smell and sound, is suddenly
set down as an impostor because q woman in
New-York has persuaded two or three of her
friends that she is the author of one of them.
The fact that his are all from the same piece,
and that her volume of watery trash contains
not line resembling the piece she stole,
weighs nothing in the minds of the tly-gob-
bers, who believe because it is in the face of
reason to believe. But still more nauseOus
swindle is now preparing in BrattlebOro, Yer
mont. 1t pretends to be nothing less than the
completion of Charles Dickenss Won
derfully beautiful and tantalizing frag-
ment, edwin Drood.n 1t is hard to
Judge, from the articles which have appeared
in several New England papers, whether this
is q shameless piece Of advertising or mirac-
ulous manifestation of pure idiotic credulity.
The story is that q young man, Sin business"
in Brattleboro has been occupied for several
months past in writing, under spiritual" dicta-
ton from Dickens himself, the completion of
the unfinished romance, and that he has been
exclusively engaged by the great novelist
TO furnish a series Of stories to the public in
the same manner. We are even given the
name of the next production from this ghostly
workshop, which is to bear the revolving title
of "The Life and Adventures of BOckley
Nicklecheep."
Not satisfied with giving this cheap and
silly gossip to its readers, one paper prints
four solid columns of extracts from this work,
which are not up to the average experiments
in fiction of children of ten. These sickening
follies are presented by respectable news
paper as "bearing as clearly the imprint Of
"Dickens's style as though he had written
them himself on earth" If this marvellous
fly-swallower had restricted himself to these
generalities he would have been wiser. But
he goes on to give his reasons for thinking
Dickens wrote this puerile stuff. 1st. The
medium spells traveller with two rs. 2d. lie
says "coals,, instead of coal' 3D.. He uses
capital letters sometimes, as for instance
"when he calls Mr.. Grewgious an Angular
"Man." These things profoundly impress this
sagacious critic He thinks Dickens must have
writton this stuff, because the "mediuni v