The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1890-08-21
Colonel Mulhatton.

Colonel M ulhatton.
Colonel Joe Mulhatton, Of Ken
lucky, the biggest liar in the United
States, III not in the universe, has
been a drummer for a long time. He
has been a liar for twenty years or
more according to the story he told
]; a reporter for the Kansas City Times
recently. He has made good deal
of money out Of both callings. Col
onel Mulhatton isl understood man.
and the shirt he wore looked like it
had never seen a laundry since the
day of it's manufacture. Neyerthe-
less Colonel Mutations collar was
clean, and fine stud blazed on the
front of his gorgeous red four-in-
hand tie. The liars coat was Of lin
zen, three shades off the black in it's
rustiness, but the ColonePs hand
shake waswarm, and his smile sought
the reporters better nature and the
/ ,UWO were IflenQS. @a
81 am not q liar by nature" said
Colonel Mulhatton; Il make a bust
ness of it for amusement. / told my
first big lie for q Louisville newspa-
per twenty years ago. / told of a
score of mummies that We're discov
cred in q wonderful cave in Pike
County, Ky. Each mummy was
eighteen feet long and had red hair
all over his body. The cave was
three miles long and a mile wide, with
very small and almost impossible
entrance. One chamber was lined
with the richest OF gold quartz and
in another diamonds and rnbies
sparkled like the stars in the firma-
ment. People focked to Pikeville by
the hundreds, and town lots were
selling out near White Post, in the
northern end of the county at one
hundred dollars afoot. Every show-
man in the country had agents in
Pike County. and old Barnum HIM
self was down there, trying to buy
the cave.
"Where / got real fame, however,
said the genial liar, strutting proudly
before the crowd that had gathered
about him and the newspaper man,
was in that meteor story. was
talking to Bill Eads, a Louisville
newspaper man, one time, and he
asked me to write him a story. [
told him / was out Of ideas and
couldn't do it. just that minute
little meteor shot across the dome Of
Heaven, and it brought me an idea.
".Tn write you a story about me-
teors, Bill, said, and turned right
around and got to work. Wellwhile
Bill was talking to me of the newspa-
per business, and the last scoop he
missed, l wrote the story The me-
teor covered an acre OF ground and
sunk about one hundred feet The
people all over Texas thought
the end of creation had come. / To-
Gated the thing in Brown County at
Williams ranch, near Brentwood,
and worked in a lot of stuff about
the fleeing populace and a sulphur
GUS smell that prevailed the atmos-
phere for miles. said that that
meteor sized and sizzled in the damp
ground, and Withered plantations
Tor acres and acres around, parching
the ground into friedrich for many
miles
''Well, the story appeared in good
season and the Associated Press sent
the item out. In a week there were
more scientists and newspaper men
on their way to Texas than the
boarding-houses of the State could
accommodate. Some of them got
lost in the mesquite brush and fed
on the beans for weeks, and S ONE of
them got discouraged looking for the
meteor and bought a hundred acres
OF fve-cent land and are living
there yet, raising mosquitoes, taran-
tulas and children. | think it was
the best thing for them that ever
happened. The London Times, Par
is Temps, Paris Gaulois, Paris Petit
Journal, Hong Kong Chow-C Chow,
and the Volksblatt Of Berlin all had
men securing Texas for that meteor.
These poor fellows were afraid to go
back home without the facts and
some photographs, and they just
stayed here The Times man is now
running a saloon at Cheyenne, the
Temps man is a barber down on
Delaware street, and the Chow Chow
correspondent has laundry on
Franklin avenue, ST. Louis. I've
lost track of the Others
He Held The Corpse.
j. :. & T y. i .
DR.. j. W. Schelpert, OF No. los