Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-04-14
THE CARDIFF GIANT.
History of the Hoax by the Man
 Who Made It.
4 Public Swindle That Brought to Its Perpctrator Considerable Money How It Received Its
 Name.


 death of George Hull, styled in the press dispatches ''the originator of the Car diff giant hoax" it was recalled to the memory of a reporter that he had once heard him tell in detail the whole story of that celebrated and marvellous fraud. The reporter, says the Chicago Tribune, was at the time at Binghamton, N. Y., reporting the trial of Edward Ruloff, who was finally hanged in that city for murder. At that time the exposure of the Cardiff giant was a matter of the recent past, and the story that Hull told one January night to party gathered around the huge open hearth fire in the sitting-room of the hotel had not only the merit of being news, but was like wise entitled to the credit of being high ly interesting.
 As he gave the story he had the idea of the Cardiff giant in his mind as a good speculation long before he took any practical steps in the matter. Fi- nally he decided to undertake the job of making a petrified giant that would amaze the multitude, puzzle the learned, and fill his own pockets with dollars. Hull had no knowledge of the art of sculpture and was totally ignor-
 
 of all he set himself resolutely to work to remedy these defects. He had con- siderable natural aptitude with the chisel, and he soon acquired sufficient skill to hew out a figure that was to be put before the public as a relic of an age so prehistoric that nobody would be likely to closely criticise its proportions But Hull said he knew that no matter ha fT, xx-I,; n6 l,i giant lived he had to have pores in his skin to pass the scrutiny of even the unlearned, and 1t was the making of these pores, he claimed, which required more time and labor than all the other work he did in the manufacture of the giant. His work occupied many weeks, and was all done in an outhouse att tached to his home near Binghamton. When it was at last finished he next made preparations for its burial, in order that when brought to public view 1t might show the proper evidence of an- tiquity. To effect that he buried 1t in the side of hill on his farm and only a few yards from the studio" where 1t had been chiseled out of a huge block of stone that had been dug out of that same hill. In all this work, huge and heavy as the uncut stone and the giant hewn out of it were, he had only the assistance of one man, Q sled and a yoke of oxen in moving them; the man who helped him move the stone was a newly-arrivedG German immigrant whom he had employed as a farmland, and had no curiosity about the matter, and the one who helped him bury the statue" was another man of the same kind.
 Hull allowed the statue to remain in the ground two years, he said, before he considered it to be in proper condition to be accidentally" discovered by him self. dug out, and the huge petrifaction brought into public view to amaze and perplex people in general, but to de- light the antiquarians who found in 1t an argument to uphold some of their most cherished theories.
 The work of Hull got its name from the fact that near the spot where it was buried and was afterwards res urrectcd was a small hamlet called Cardiff. Therefore 1t was as the Cardiff giant" that the roughly-hewn | image began and ended it's public career, which was not of long continu- ance; it was, however, for period sui ficiently lengthy to enable Hull to mako 1 considerable money out of the thing. According to his own story as he told it that night he might have made moro with much less trouble if he had ac- cepted an offer Barnum made him for the giant soon after its appearance in ! public. Of course exposure in the end was sure to come and did come, but that would have made no difference to , Barnum; as an item in the 'soreat show" it would always have had value, but with Hull the case was different; the truth becoming known the giant was forced into retirement. But he de- clared to his auditors that night in the hotel that the Cardiff giant, which he averred was then lying in the shed where 1t was made, had brought him moro money than he had ever dared hope 1t would and that he was entirely content with the result of the venture so far as its pecuniary returns were concerned.