The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-01
SOME CHICAGO FAKES"
NOTABLE NEWSPAPER STORIES
SPRUNG IN THE WINDY CITY.
Their Authors Have Since Gone Into
the Theatrical Business and Are
Now Booming Stars.
Washington Star.


the general row over the extension of the
Chicago street-railway franchise had been
up for discussion-"th newspapers out there
fell into the traps set by a sad lot of bril-
liant reportorial fakirs about ten or dozen
years ago. 1 meet one or the other of these
former reportorial fakirs every once in a
while They're all doing well. They've all
won out Several of them are theatrical
managers, and others of the lot are press
agents for theatrical outfits, and in these
capacities they are congenialy placed, in so
far as their joyous Indulgence in the riot
BUSINESS of their lurid imaginations is con-
cerned. They all just happened to drift into
Chicago around the period, say, from 1886 to
1890, and they all got employment on the
various newspapers of Chicago, which were
all more or less high in the standard and
tone of their local news before these in
genious and incorrigible fakrs happened
into the town. And it wasn't the fault Of
the newspapers or of the owners thereon
that Chicago and all of the desmesnes ada
cent thereto were so terrifically faxed dur
ing the period to which / refer. The news
papers couldn't help it. Their spellbinders
turned in such corkng whoppers, with such
a wealth of detail in every case, that-well,
the frankly named Liars Club of Chicago,
finding itself overtopped and outdone to
standstill just voted to go out of existence
at the time when the reportorial taking of
Chicago was at its zenith.
For instance: The guileless innocent
looking young man who did the hotel inter-
viewing for one of the most famous of the
Chicago dalies-he's now the chief of staff
of a big American theatrical syndicate-used
to get so chesty at times when there was
Inn ina in n
that he'd study for weeks on schemes
whereby not only to move the populace of
Chicago out of it's midsummer lethargy, but
to shake the whole continent and to project
a rumble beneath the trones of the crowned
heads across the sea. His most extraordi-
nary achievement in this line was his In
terview with &. famous Italian statesman
travelling incogIito through the United
States and registered yesterday at the Hotel
Richelieu, whence he departed last night Tor
San Francisco. For hugeness of conception
and minuteness of detail this interVleW was
surely a wonder. The great Slgnor OF Italian
craftsmanship was represented in the m
terview as the strongest supporter OF the
Vatican party, and in this capacity he was
represented as having the greatest possible
intimacy with the hopes and plans OF the
Roman pontiff.
plans, and in a very significant paragraph
he stated that such was the unsat lsfactoIl-
ness of the pontiffs position in the pollcy
of the kingdom of Italy the Pope meditated
CHANGING. In the very near future, the site
of the Holy See from Rome to Berne Swltass
columns of it, got into type on the nrst page
of the newspaper that employed this hotei
on the Rest of the dallies All of the hetel
reporters of all of the rest OF the Chlcago
newspapers were fired in body Tor 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 noleI
| oI,n hat c1I0 a
signor of Italian craftsmanship had been
registered at his hosiery.
FAKE CALLED TO ROME.
Gan 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 Pope's 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 to the possible removal of the
Holy See from Rome to Switzerland, and in
general the deuce of a row stirred UP
by the interview scrubbed by the bland,
understanding young reporter, who is now
drawing big pay for writing about this or
that actresses loss Of her jewels, how such
and such a corpulently inclined nightingale
of the stage decreases her weight, etc.
'Iie stuck it 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 delicacy, etc. He
was kept on the staff of this paper, and he
! didn't spring another large until the
! final day Of his newspaper work in Chicago
| I'll tell you about that one later on.
Then there was that famous fake about
| the duel in one of the parks on Chicago S
| South Side. An ingenious young man. who
! afterward married famous prlma donna,
PP6ee that 9ne e o maS 2so gn
| to the preparation of his star fake ne had
| been suffering from ennui because he had
nothing more exciting to turn in as copy
than stories of occasional raids of faro lay
outs on Clark street, impromptu pugiliStic
| encounters in Parson DaVies's gin mill and
SO on So he took a couple of days off, car
ried big COB of copy paper to his room
and sat down to indite one that would give
the sleuths of the town a little exercise.
The yarn he evolved would have been a
daisy had it appeared as fiction in the col
uulns of a highly spiced newspaper of Paris
Sprung, however, as gospel truth, with big
names to back it up, and with a complete
ness of detail such as is advertised by the
projectors of stage spectacles, it certainly
was a casper even for Chicago
1T was the story Zone page with pictures)
of a duel that had been fought in South
Side park at gray dawn of the morning be-
fore publication. 1t was a duel of the most
approved limelike pattern-rapiers, the two
gents to the encounter wearing soft boS-
oTned, friled shirts; seconds standing by
with long and hooded mackintoshes sur
geons for both parties standing by a con-
uguous clump OF trees; one man badly
wounded, other pinked in the left arm, and,
nnally, the appearance upon the scene of the
innocent young thing in skirts who had been
the cause of the whole fracas-a chorus girl
figuring in the second of the Sinbad'
operate extravaganza, which was then run
ming merrily at the Chicago Opera House.
Oh, that was hot yarn, all right. One of
the contestants was represented as a young
Southern gentleman. the scion of the top
most family of Mississippi (name not re-
vealed) and the party of the second part to
the savage and bloOdthiTsty encounter was
Baron kalnoky, the son of the prime min
lister of Austria. The baron was repre-
Sented as having met the chorus girl in
London, as having fallen desperately in love
with her on the spot where he first saw her
of having followed her to this country of
having been vituperated and scorned by her
because she loved and was going to marry
the scion of the swell house of Mississippi
and as having finally, in a vortex of rage
slapped the countenance Of the hot young
member from the sunny southland Hence
the duel.
THE DUELISTS CONCEALED.
THE pair of duelsts We're, of course.
Spirited away dn the story after the
fight, and the way they eluded the ma
chinery of justice during the few exciting
days after the publication of the story was
certainly caution. They just seemed to
have dropped off the earth completely. OF
course. all of the rest of the night police re-
porters were compelled to make the best
answers they could to the Where were you
~ hou