Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-06-01
THE CARDIFF GIANT.
The Great Relic Will Probably BE Ex-
hibited Again Soon.

From the Syracuse Post-Standard.
After long years of obnoxious desue-
tude" the Cardiff Giant is again discover
ed, will be put on exhibition, and, like
John Browns spirit, is to go marching on
This time it will be placed before the pub
lie as the greatest fraud in America" and
not, as at first, the greatest relic of an
extinct race of giants"
For some fifteen or twenty years the
people have heard little and seen less of
the stone image. The cause is twofold:
First. it had become a chestnut" and,
second, it was lost The giant is not such
a small object that it need be wrapped in
tissue paper and locked up to he preserved.
He would not easily be lost to view with
his eleven feet of length, or swept out in
the garbage with his $500 pounds of
weight.
After winning thousands of dollars for its
inventors and owners, 'Tamus, god OF
gods" came to be despsed and created no
interest He spent some time at the world $
fair. it said, and then seemed to have
been laid with his ancestors. Several
Tamuses appeared and were shown in diff
ferent parts of the country, but little in
terest was taken in them, for it was soon
learned that they were frauds on the origi-
nal fraud.
By some odd chance Tamus found his
way to Syracuse and was slowed away in
the freight office of the New York Central
railroad. There he lay as if in the grave.
He seemed to be without a friend, his ad-
mirers had fallen off, and there was none
to do him reverence. Who his owner was
was in doubt. The railroad company still
afforded him shelter and protection from
boys and relic hunters. There was a bill
due from some one who could not be found
that the company kept in its archives.
From this retirement. ii Is now said,
Tamus is to be brought out under the man
agement that vouches for his identity, and
shown in this city. When Tamus became
so popular that P. T Barnum offered $780,,
coo for his services for three months, a
through the country became original
Tamuses, until the poor fellow hardly knew
whether he was Tamus 1 TaInus one
dozen.
1t is now said that the giant at the
worlds fair was not the original '"ramus
looking at the greatest humbug on earth
when they were told that it was Tamus
that was on exhibition at the first state
fair held on the new grounds here. 1t is
now said that both these pieces of handi-
work were frauds and that all the while
the original fraud was slunbering in the
Central freight office.
The only birth the Cardiff Giant ever had
was in the brain of George Hull, a Con-
necticut Yankee He secured the stone
near Fort Dodge and shipped it to Chi
cago. where the image was made and dis
colored with acid. 1t was then shipped to
Union, near Bingnamton, and reshipped TO
Cortland, from there it was carted in the
night to the farm Of stub" Newell, in
Cardiff 1t was duly buried in 1868, but
without ceremony and by moonlight.
A year later Newell happened" to be
digging a well, and much to his surprise
spread, and in short time thousands of
people were fiocking to see the discovery"
1t is said that 81 coo made before it
was removed from where it was buried.