The age-herald., 1897-11-21

IL IIdA De IEAI tHe HHsGoAeTy O1 5lilt gulliblity of the public, and the ease with which i was imposed upon by the telescope story, induced Poe nine years later. to invent a grand hoax, with which h. successfully deceived the same paper which before had been instrumental in deceiVing the public. In April 1S44. there appeared in the New York Sun an item headed: 'Astounding News by Express via Norfolk! The Atlantic C sgd in Three D3ys! Signsl Triumph of Mir Monclx Mason's Flying Machinei" Then follows an announcement of the al- rival at Sullivan.s Island. near Charles ton, s. C., of MT. Mason. MT. Robert Hol- land MT Henson, Mir Harrison Aims worth and four others. in the steering balloon "Victoria," after a passage of seventy-five hours from land to land. with particulars of the voyage. The story was lengthy and in Poe's best sty's. It gave a full scientific description of the steering balloon. or air-ship. of is apparatus, the rnanner in which the nfc- ehansm worked the motor power. and all with such plausiblity and appearance of truth that even the scientific world was mislead There was even then lively competition among the captains of ocean steamers to reduce he time Of passage. There were also then, as now nufnerous inventors a work upon the idea of traveling through the air. ard the possibilities of aerial navigation were under eager discussion. Poe's hoax therefore, found ready credence not oniy in the Sun office. but also among the public. The rush for the paper, accord ing to Poe's own gleeful account of the transaction, was without precedent; civ cry one was desrous of obtaining full particulars of the wonderful voyage across the Atlantic. and, as communica- ton with the southern states was com parati lively slow, several days elapsed be- fore the deception was discovered. Pos took exquisite delight in the ease with which he had imposed upon the public. and seemed to regard the readiness or the world to believe his story as sort of personal triumph.
 Poe seems to have been the Joe Null hatton of his day but the balloon hoax did not excite wider attention than soCne of the stories of this later genius in pre- varication. Affiliations career has bee n so recent that his name Is familiar to the public. His yarns were well conceived and told with a circums tanttality that brought them ready credence wherever published. He was the dread Of every prominent newspaper in the country. for it was his delight to impose upon a lead
 ing journal with some extravagant tale bearing an appearance of truth, and the more reputable and reliable the pap r the greater was Joe's delight in hoaxing it and it's subscribers 45
 A few years ago New York paper published a startling account of a. me- teorlte which had fallen in Texas an inn mense mass of glowing lron TO feet in height and 60 or 60 in breadth. In it's fall it had crushed a farm house. de- stroying the building and all It's occu- pants, and driving the ruins deep into the earth The mass was still at white heat, and the mortified residents of the nelghborhood could perceive, in the steam that rose from the surrounding earth, the odor of burning flesh, that of the unfortunates who had met so ter7 .ii ia fof in ftfaT f dfaNIr. hundreds of telegra ms from ell the inn portant newspapers in the country came to the town in the immediate vicinity of the spot where the unusual occurrence was reported, the editors being naturally desirous of obtaining fuller particulars of so remarkable an incident.
 One of the best of Joe's fabrlcations was palmed off upon the Louisville Courier-Journal a. few years ago. Joe was in Birmingham, Ala, on commer- cal tour, and while reading the local pa per orc morning in the hotel where ha had registered he came upon pa gra- h to the effect that the drill of an artesi7n we'll had struck a flowing stream of wa ter beneath the city at a depth of over 800 feet. Here was his lnSniration. He al once sat down and penned hair-lift- ing description of a recent discovery made in Birmingham that the entire city was undellaid by a subterra nean river. thai the thin limestone crust above the stream was gradually giving way, and that there was serious danger Of the city being engulfed. The city hall was all ready sinking, one corner had gone down about three feet other buildings were showing signs of falling. Fisspfes had appeared in the ground, the m gin street exhibiting sinkhoe where the earth had disappeared into the torrent benea tn, and. alt gether, there was a very horrify- ing s,ate of affairs The sensation was
 telegraphed from the Courier-Journal to other papers. with a result similar to that which Joe had achieved in his Texas story.
 His best and most successful was his Thirteen Story. a play upon a well known superstition. Gn one of his Texas tours he conceived the idea of the story, wrote it out and sent 1t to a leading paper of the east The story in itself was not improbable. IA party of hunters. th.r- teen in number. procured a coach and horses and left a Western Texas town for the purpose of hunting in a wide stretch of little known country to the west. The party had never returned to it's starting point, but, as the stage and horses had been purchased outright, Title was thought of the incident, for there was no special reason why the hunters should return to their starting point, as every day people left Western Texas towns and never came back. Two years after their departure, cowboys, searching for plains for cattle. discovered the re- mains of the coach with the skeletons of the horses and of the thirteen travellers. They had perished of thirst in an ex- ceedingly arid district. Some one then remembered that when they were leaving the town, attention was called to the fact that they were thirten in number. and that misfortune would undoubtedly befall them. They had even been warned not to proceed, but laughing at the hoary superstition, they declared themselves superior to old women's mo- tions and accordingly paid the penalty of their rashness. The story was wid ely copied and for a considerable time p1ssed current as genuine until Mulhatton him self finally revealed its origin.
 The Joe Mulhatton of the last century was George Psalmanazar, a French ad- venturer, who, having travel d extenSive- ly in Europe and finding himself every where pushed for funds. determined to raise the wind" in an entirely novel and unheard of fashion He had ataste for reading, and, in the course of his desuLtory studies. became much inter ested in China and the east He deter mined to pass himself off as an oriental, so assumed a fantastic garb which he declared to be that cOmmonlv worn in