The San Francisco call., 1897-01-28
A SAD DEFECT.

The vagaries of the Examiner are such
that few people are surprised by any new
antic it may commit. With it anything
goes. from extorting money from rail-
road to bunkoing a prize-fght. and it
fakes with equal facility scandals atshome
and direful sensations abroad. Neverthe-
less, so far as it was capable OF surprising
anybody it did so yesterday in double
column, double-leaded, double-dyed at
tack on The CALL for giving to one of its
most amusing fakes the advantage of
free advertising in the homes of intelli-
gent people.
The CALL had pointed out that the as
sertions of the Examiner concerning the
arrest in China OF the relatives Of persons
suspected of the murder of "Litte Pete"
was fake. 1t showed that the feat of
telegraphing news to China and back
again could not have been performed;
that no such telegram as stated by the
Examiner had been sent from this City by
the Chinese Consul General; that no tele-
graph Office in this City had received or
dispatched such telegram, and finally,
that Ii YunG Yuen, whom the Examiner
declared to be the Chinese Consul General
in this City, has been in Cuba for upward
of four months. Surely this was a good
proof of the powers of Imagination which
exist in the Examiner Office, and was
good advertisement of its ability to keep
pace with the latest developments of the
so-called new journalism.
So far from being grateful for our adver-
tising, or recognizing the humor of the sit
uation, the Exqminer took up the matter
seriously. 1t declared that it has great
opportunity to know everything that hap
pens because it has correspondents all
over the world, from Madrid to Shanghai.
The earnestness with which it made these
claims showed that in its solemn stupid
ity 1t was not aware of the fact that we
had not charged it with lack of CORE
spondents elsewhere, but only that it did
not send a reporter to the Office of the
Consul General on Stockton street in this
City.
The Examiner asserts with a dignity
truly pompous that concerning the "in
generation" as it calls it, OF the relatives
of the fighting See Yups, sit is hardly
necessary for the Examiner to reiterate
the statement and add that it was abso-
lutely true" Surely we can agree to that
proposition. 1t was entirely unnecessary
for the Examiner to do so. Nobody
thought the statement true when pub
llshed, nobody thinks 1t is true now, and
there is certainly no necessity for the EG-
dmtiner'S young men TO lie in editorials
when they could lie in the local columns
at space rates.
1t is clear the managers of the E1dnl-
i1ler are lacking in sense of the idiculous,
as we'll as of veracity. They cannot see that
these clever takers from Madrid to Shang-
hal, and not a few in San Francisco, are
simply Guying Mr.. Hearst and selling
him any old thing for news. They are
slyly stabbing Long Green Lawrence
to make Willie Hearst bleed. They send
him any sort OF a fake, no matter how
raw, and he is unab bic to see that the stuff
is absurd.
Long Green cannot even keep posted on
local affairs sufficiently to know the name
OF such an important official as the Chi
nese Consul-General IN this City. A faker
brings him dispatch which he alleges to
have been written by an official on Stock
ton street when the official has been for
four months in Cuba, and the Long Green
manager, not knowing the difference,
calls it news from China and pays out Mr..
Hearsps money for it.
1t is sad defect, this lack of sense of
the ridiculous. 1t has led Long Green
Lawrence into many an ugly situation
and NJ ost woefully has Willie Hearst had
to bleed for it.