The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-05-05
rHn moNARcaY OF mENpACgry
Some CT the Masterpieces Of the
Worlds Greatest Narrator.
ZION The -Erprcss.

tpckv farmer who had imported a ship load
~ uonkeys from Africa and had trained
them 70 pick hemp.
The monkeys required little care in their
keeniug, received no pay, and did their
work SO well that the farmer discharged
nearIv every man in his employ, determined
20 import thousand more monkeys, and
looked forward with joy and confidence to
che time when. owing TO the low cost of his
labor, he would obtain practical monopoly
Of the business Of growing hemp, and would
hec0ne one of the richest men in tn south.
Then the story went on 70 say that the
knights of Labor Of kentucky had become
tarrihly excited over the affair, that they
had denounced the Importation of monkey
labor from Africa as being worse than the
importation of pauper labor from Europe,
and that a strike would certainly &C.
cur. and there might be riots and bloodshed,
unless the entire monkey business was
stopped.
This yarn was told in such an ingenious
way that many people believed il. But
F.. the vary veterans among newspaper read
ers regarded it as the work of a colossal
4 liar. Il was not long before Joe Mulhatton,
& commercial traveller, was known to be the
man who started the story on its rounds
Then everybody knew that 1t was lie.
This story is recalled to mind by the dis
patch from Chicago saying that Mulhatton
was found wandering about the streets in
iazed condition, and is now locked up In
the Detention Hospital for the Insane.
Mulhatton was born in Allegheny City,
Pa, forty-three years ago, and has been on
the road as commercial traveller for fifteen
or twenty years. In business affairs he has
been regarded as honest and conscientious.
His home is in Louisville, and he belongs to
the Baptist church. For many years mis-
constant aim has been to startIe the world
with remarkable stories, or flakes, as such
productions are known in newspaper offices
In telling lies OF a plausible and yet
remarkable character Mulhatton found al
most his sole enjoyment in life. Some men
devote their attention to billiards after
business hours, others to horses, others to
cards, to theatres, to literature, and SO on /;
but Mutations weakness was for the
strange and marvellous, and in the course of
time he became known as the champion
liar of America, the monarch of mendacity.
His name and his stories appeared in all the
newspapers, he became famous for out
andsh inventions, and in 1884 the COM
mercal travellers, desiring to do him honor,
nominated him for President against Ben
Butler and Belva Lockwood, and then for
got to vote for him.
Three years ago, in the Louisville Courier
Journal, was printed a dispatch from At
anta, Ca, telling about the remarkable ex-
turned from q visit to the central part OF
Alabama. On one occasion, while in the
country, he saw man driving ten or
twelve geese toward a cotton patch. Here
is The story of what followed:
What is that you have on the necks of
those geesem said |.
Those are gourds full of water. drive
the geese into that cotton patch and keep
them there all day wedding out the cotton
There is no water in the cotton patch, and
| have to give them water, and this is the
way to keep them there. Those geese will
Ne out more cotton in a day than TWO
people would. They will eat the grass and
weeds, but they wont touch the cotton
"3ut how do they get water out of those
gourds under their necksm
They drink out of each others gourd
Each gourd has an opening in the side, so
that another goose can put his bill into the
Eourd aud drink. If you will stop here long
enough you will see it for yourself"
| waited there half day to see that per-
formence, and finally | saw it. The geese
did just the same as the man said they
would. When goose got thirsty he walked
up to his nelghbor and coolly drank out of
the gourd on his neck.
When asked if he had yet made a crop
with the help of the geese, he replied that
be had made a small crop last year, but
only had a limited number of geese, as he
was only experimenting. This year he had
over 100 geese in harness, and they have
succeeded in keeping his crops cleaned out
80 far. de has 100 acres under cultivation
and says he will make the best crop he has
ever made. When asked how he came to
tnlnk of using the geese as farm hands, he
replied that two years ago he had small
patch of cotton near his house. In this
patch the geese raised about his yard were
allowed to run. He noticed that the cotton
had little or no grass and no weeds
al all, and he began to watch the geese He
found that they ate every weed and every
blade OF grass, but they did not touch the
cotton. Finding how valuable they were
for this purpose, he resolved to try them on
larger scale, and is delighted with his ex~
pertinent. His neighbors have paid close
attention to the matter, and next year they
will start number of geese in harness 10
their cotton crops.
The dispatch concluded with the predic-
ton that IF the farmers experiment. is as
successful as he thinks it will be, it is only q
question OF a few years until the whole cot
ton crop of Alabama will be weeded out by
the ordinary goose.n This was another of
Joe Mulhatton's stories, and it went the
rounds amusing the wise and deceiving the
credulous.
Mutations earliest attempt at "fakes"
dealt with wonderful caves in KENTUCKY
full of bones of prehistoric men and ami
mails. Once he wrote how oil wells of ex-
traordinary capacity had been drilled near
Glasgow Junction, KY. This lie was very
deceptive, ana many prospectors aud SCI
entists hurried off to Kentucky to make
Investigations. Another of Mulhatton's in
ventlons was in regard to a meteor that fell
In Texas. 1t was big enough to cover an
acre of ground and bored tremendous
hole IN the earth.
This same versatile ard picturesque liar
has been credited with the author-hip of
the remarkable story OF the lake of hair dye
that was published in the summer of 1888 in
the Virginia City Enterprise. We quote
it in full:
Mono Lake contains one of the greatest
natural deposits of hair dye in the known
world. A white-haired old Bodie man who
went down to the lake this summer was so
pleased with the bathing to be had there
tbst ne went In for swim regularly every
evening after finishing his days work. He
was down at the lake two weeks, and when
he got to Bodie his friends hardly knew
Dim. he left Bodie a white-haired old man,
ano he came back golden blonde and ap-
paFentIy man of only middle ago.
All who battle in the waters of that lake
become blondes, and if the bathing be per-
sisted IN for any length of time they get
req headed. man last spring rented the
Levlning ranch. on the north side of the
lake. He has three strapping daughters
AS soon as the water became warm enough