Evening star., 1898-12-17

| 1aklrS happened into the town. And it
| wasn't the fault of the newspapers, or of
| the owners thereof, that Chicago and all of
| the desmesnes adjacent thereto were so
! tefflncally faxed during the period to which
L refer. The newspapers couldn't help it
| Their spellbinders turned in such corking
| WhopperS, with such a wealth of detail in
| every case, that-well, the frankly named
| Liars Club OF Chicago, finding itself over
| topped and outdone to a standstill tust
| voted to go out of existence at the time
| when the reportorial taking of Chicago
| was at its zenith.
| For instance:
| Gigantic WhOpper.
| The guileless. innocent looking young
man who did the hotel interviewing for one
| Of the most famous of the Chicago dailies-
he's now the chief of staff of a big Ameri-
can theatrical syndicate-used to get so
chesty at times, when there was no genuine
news in his line to be secured, that he'd
| study Tor weeks on schemes whereby not
only to move the populace of Chicago ont
| OF It's midsummer lethargy, but to shake
| the whole continent and 10 project a r1Im-
| pie beneath the thrones of the crowned
! headS across the sea. His most eStraor-
! cInary achievement in this line was his in
| terView' with famous Italian statesman
| travelling inCOgnitO through the United
| States, and registered yesterday at the
| Hotel Richelicu. whence he departed last
| night for San Francisco For hugeness of
| conception and minuteness of detail this
! interview was surely wonder The great
siSnOr OF Italian craftsmanship was repre-
! sented in the interview as the strongest
! supporter of the Vatican party and in this
| capacity he was represented having the
! greatest possible intimacy with the hopes
| and plans of the Roman pontiff He talked
| at length respecting these plans. and in
| very significant paragraph he stated that
| such was the unsatsfactoriness of the
| pontiff's position in the polity of the king
| dom OF Italy, the pope meditated changing
| in the very near future, the site of the
! holy see from Rome to Berne Switzerland
! The interview, two double-leaded columns
| of 1t, got into type on the first page of the
| newspaper that employed this hotel-report-
| ing genius, and it was awful scoop on
| the rest of the dailies. All of the hotel re-
| porters of all of the rest Of the Chicago
| newspapers were fired In a body for not
| getting the interview and they only Sc
| cured their reinstatement when they pro-
| duced the affidavit made under oath by
| Cardinal Bemis, the proprietor of the
| Hotel Richelieu, that no such a person as
| the great signor of Italian craftsmanship
! had been registered at his hostelry. All
| the same. that interview was put on the
| cable entire, and reproduced verbatim in
| all of the great papers of Europe, and the
| bronze doors of the popes apartments in
| the Vatican were asSailed for days by cor
| respondents of European papers who were
| directed to find out If there was anything
| In the story as TO the possible removal of
| the holy see from Rome to Switzerland, and
| IN general the deuce OF q row was S1lrred
| up by the interview scribbled by the
| bland, guleess looking young reporter w no
| IS now drawing big pay for writing about
| this or that actress loss of her jewels, how
| such and such a corpulently inclined night
ingale of the stage decreases her weight
| etc. He stuck 1t out that he really had got
the interview precisely as it was published
| perhaps not at the Richelieu, but in Chi
| cagO, all right he said-but that, having
| made a solemn promise not to reveal the
name and title of the interviewee, he, of
course, felt a natural delcacy, etc, etc
| He was kept on the staff of his paper and
! he didn't spring another large one until the
| final day of his newspaper work in Chi
| caso. III tell you about that one later on.
DR.. Cronin's Cottage.
| "Then there was the fake about the cot
| tage in which DR.. Cronin was murdered.
! You'll recall that the police searched the
| whole town of Chicago for weeks and
| months in their efforts to find out just
where DIR. Cronin was murdered, and they
| didn't have the least particle of success. A
| young man who's now running about a
| dozen fancy retail meat shops, with onyx
! counters, all over Chicago, at that
Time connected with one of the most con-
| servative of the Chicago morning newspa-
| perS in the capacity of a night police re-
| porter. Well, he went out and found the
| cottage wherein DR.. Cronin was murdered.
| He picked out a deserted wooden shack
way over on the outskirts of the town,
| and he scattered a lot of broken chairs
| around the front room thereof and fixed up
| other realistic If somewhat too overdone
| evidences that an awful and CORY struggle
| had taken place in the room and then he
| sat down and wrote two double -leaded
| pages (Which were Illuminated with about a
! dozen big pictures) telling just how he had
! accidentally happened to hit upon the cot
| tage wherein the murder of DR.. Cronin had
| been committed. That, too, was beat that
| cost most of the other police reporters Of
| Chicago their jobs-for excuses didn't go
out there for getting beat at that time.
| The writer of the story was promptly ar
| rested and taken before the grand Jury,
| which was waiting for the submission OF
| all the evidence in the case before return
ing indictments against the men held on
| suspicion of being involved in the murder.