The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-03-03
AS L WAS SAYING.

speaking of newspaper fakes" said
one OF the "boys" the other day, "the
most successful one of which ever knew
personally was Sohnes' Java earthquake
story. You know Sohnesg
"Nog Well, he's dead now, but he was
on the Boston Globe a hong time, and j
thought everybody knew Sohnes.
. "He made $500 or 800 out of that earth
quake story. IL must have been about
'S3. The Globe got ten words OF cable
about an earthquake in Java; many lives
supposed TO be lost; no details, and-you
know the sort Of thing.
'Sohnes saw his opportunity. lie
rushed to the public library and got all
the books on Java and earthquakes he
could Law bis hands on. Then he wrote
eight or nine columns of the most vivid
and picturesque details, all full of narrow
escapes and houses crushed Ike card,
board and whole families engulfed, and
all that sort of thing
''He ran in descriptions of all the earth
quakes that ever had taken place IN Java,
and pretty much the whole history OF
the island. oh, IL was u magnllcent
write up he gave them Then he pre-
faced the whole account with most con-
vincing explanation of how the Globe hap
pened TO have such u big exclusive. IL
was something about n coffee merchant
who had a hair breadth escape from death
and was somehow led TO cable IL TO "a
brother or somebody or other more or
less reasonably connected with him in the
office.
"He wired il all over the country and
and all the big papers took IL. IL was
cabled from New York to London. Ana
the papers chat didn't get it or didn't
trust it the first day had it the second
when London cabled IL back again.
ut took tremendously, though there was
one thing which stuck in the crops of lots
OF people. Sohnes had an immense cake
OF ice erupted along with the flames and
smoke from a volcano. Some of the papers
left that out and some of the scientific
chaps picked it up and wrote columns to
prove it couldn't possibly be SO.
Now / don't know whether it was so
or not, but Sohnes got il straight enough
out of sober, serious, right-minded ac-
count OF Java quake some thirty years
previoas. That ought TO be good authority.
"The curious thing about the whole
matter was, most of Sohnes' cable came
true. THAT is, his details were borne out
by the bona iide cable dispatches that ar
rived within day or two. Sohnes took
great airs to himself for having done the
thing up truthfully. See,' he said, those
follows over there aren't at all original !;
they can't work up any better earthquake
news than just to corroborate me-
"Sohnes tried it on n little later about
something else. | forget whether il was
IA big fire in Vienna or an assassination !;
but it didn't work quite so beautifully.
He didn't get as much money out of il,
and the foreign correspondents didn't SO
fully corroborate him. Still, Sohnes was
great boy"
Arthur Brisbane, long the managing
editor and controlling genius of the New
York EUCning sun, has become the Sunday
editor OF the World, but they say he is
rather Shy of having il known.
People often grow so familiar with OBJ
jects which come in their way daily as not
TO observe them at all, | have been in the
habit of passing the corner of Westmin-
stef and Defratfee streets sevrr1f times II
day for many months. The other evening
as 1 went along | was surprised to see a
clock on the corner of the building.
"Hullo," | said, that must be some
thing new.'
] went into the corner cigar store and
asked how long the clock had been there.
My friend the storekeeper stared at me
and said it had been there about six years
and that | must be a little twisted" He
kindly put it mildly.
i suppose the fact is that | must have
seen that clock before, but l actually did
not take any mental notice OF 1t