The Press., 1897-04-22
ACCOUNT OF A HOAX.
STORY OF THE MOHIcAN'S LOSS IN THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN.


 How living Tom Barrett" Came to Tell
 the Yarn-A Rivalry Had Grown Up
 Among the Munchausens, but the Mo
 hican Lie Was a Little Too Much.
 Very many persons may remember tha story that was telegraphed and ca bled all over the world in the summer of 1895 of the sinking of the United States revenue cutter Mohican by the British seal pirate Belle of the Pacific somewhere in that indefinite part of the north Pacific ocean known to all Alas kans as "the westward" Not so many probably will remember that the story was fake, because it is the lamenta ble history of such things that the truth never completely overtakes the lie. It was lie out of whole cloth, as was demonstrated when the Mohican turned up all right that fall at the end of the patrol season, but the manner of it's pub ication has not been told.
 This lie began to have its being years ago when the steamers first began to take tourists from "down below" as Alaskans call the States, up through the gorgeous scenery of the north Pacific coast line for peep at the northern ter ritory. As usual thing the tourists spend eight or ten hours ashore at Ju- neau and as much more in Sitka Some times they make dash up to Muir gla cier Altogether they see lot of the country in a panoramic sort of way, and they hear 8 great deal more about it. It is one of the lands where the blindest bluffs hold good and the widest tales are true. So when they get back to the States again, the tourists begin to un- fold to their friends and their friends friends and to their acquaintances and to anybody who will listen, particularly to overcredulous newspaper men, the widest tales that human ingenuity can devise.
 For a long time the AIaskans did their best to chase down these lies, but they failed. The liar had all the advan- tageG of teleeraphs and daily mails and the widespread publicity given by the too credulous newspaper men. Then the Alaskans gave mp the direct attack and took up the gentle art of lying them selves. They had so much time to prac- tice when there was nothing else to in- terfere that every two weeks, when the mailboat came in, fine new crop of marvellous stories had been carefully harvested for dissemination in the States The steamship men were always the medium through which these stories were communicated to the credulous public of Oregon, Washington and Cali fornia. These steamship men rapidly acquired a large reputation with the readers of thrilling newspaper accounts of brave newspaper deeds. The people on the Pacific coast seem to be singular ly open minded and receptive. But even they caught on after awhile to the fact that the Alaskans were jollying them. Then resentment took the natural form, and you couldn't find Pacific coast man with a horse rake who would be- | lieve an Alaska steamship mans story if the narrator was literally incased in Bibles.
 It developed through the somewhat general competition that as compound CT of able tales Tom Barrett was easily at the head. He won his distinction and his title at the same time, springing from comparative obscurity in the ranks of liars by one successful coup. Barrett | was ill the employ of a trading company at the westward. He rolled into Sitka one day with the most astonishing sto- ries of the auriferous riches of Middle ton island, little chunk of rock and sand that had been heaved up above the | water by some submarine olcanic erup- | tion far out in the middle of the north | Pacific ocean. All Alaska that could go started for Middleton island on the strength of Barrett's yarns, and all Alaska that couldn't go grub staked somebody who could. When the excite ment was over and those who went to Middleton island had got back and those | who didn't go were out their grub stakes, the man who had started the rush spontaneously became known to all Alaska as "Lying Tom Barrett ''
 | Living Tom Barrett' told the yarn about the Mohican to the newspaper man in Port Townshend, who telegraphed column of it to his paper ill Seattle and started it around the world. Bar. rett was coming down from Alaska and on the way put up the job with the steamship men to spring 8 yarn that should make a sensation in the States. l make it go themselves, but they agreed to back Barrett up ill whatever he said and to give him a good send off if there was effort at verifcation. So when the steamer put in at Port Townshend, Bar. rett got himself interviewed, and the next day the world was reading Gap tain Thomas Barrett's'' remarkable sto- ry of the loss of the Mohican. When the yarn got back to Juneau and Sitka, there were some Alaskans who laughed nightly at the hoax, but others, who knew the officers of the Mohican thought of the cruelty of it to the relatives and friends of the cutters men, and on the whole Barrett's story did not meet with the approval even of the liars. That Twas carrying the thing too far. Harm less stories about islands of gold or i'm possible customs of unheard of people were we'll enough, but this lie turned the tide ill favor of truthfulness, and now Alaskans are more circumspect ir their stories about the territory. But Barrett will never be anybody but 'Ly. ing Tom" to them.-New York Sun. Sixty Thousand Seeds to the Plant.
 The common purslane is one of tho wonders of botany, as far as seeds art concerned at least. A single seed of thi' plant will produce about 20 seed pods in a season. The average number oi seeds in eacL of these, by actual count is 6, 900, making 60, 900 in all. As fal as we have been able to learn there ii