Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-06-12
THEY INVENT SENSATIONS.
People Who Go to Extremes to Mys
tify the Police.

From Pearsons Weekly.
There is class Of people who find their
delight in finding extra work for the diff
ferent police forces in the country and
cloaking themselves in sensa tionai myster-
les. They are wretched lot of people, and
give the police an infinitude of trouble SIM
| ply to gain their own aims.
"A snort time ago a man was discovered
upon lonely heath in Sussex, his mouth
gagged, his hands tied loosely together
| and his ankles bound by stout cord. He
declared that he had been set upon by
| three men, who had bound and gagged him
| in the manner in which he had been found.
| and, having searched him without discover
| ing any valuables and money, had de-
camped.
The policeman who discovered the I'M
happy victim had his suspicious raised by
the fact that the cord round the mans
wrists was quite lightly tied and could
easily have been slipped off. Keeping his
suspicious to himself, however. he made
cord had been bought by the unfortunate
| victim" at a neighboring village, and that
the gag consisted of nothing more fearful
| than the cork of the ''victim,s'' own beer
bottle sewn into a red handkerchief be-
longing to the same person.
Meantime, the man had become the hero
or MS fellow townsmen, who gave the
heath a wide berth, and considered that il
must have been infested by some cut
| threats from London" Subsequently the
man acknowledged that he had gagged and
pound himself, his desire being to have a
lark with the police and gain some motor
iety in his neighborhood
The longing for notoriety is generally the
root from which these manufactured sem
satlonS spring. country publican con-
ceived a novel idea of getting his inn we'll
known and talked about, by manufacturing
around it cloak resembling a very mys-
ferrous crime.
One morning innkeepar'S wife aroco
and went down to prepare for the days
work. Going to the front door she was
horriiled at discovering large pool of
blood upon the doorstep. The door also
was Spattered with blood. In alarm she
aroused her husband who was equally hor-
rifled at her discovery, and sent for the viii
iage constable. The constable turned pale
at the sight, and a cold sweat poured down
the nape of his neck. For the first time in
his experience he was face to face with
fragrant evidence of some terrible crime
restraining his natural inclination to
telegraph for the chief commissioner of
police, he followed the stains of blood fo:.
some hundreds of yards down the road
across a field to a pond, at the brink of
which the trail stopped. The inference was
obvious. 1t almost got up and hit the con-
stable in the chest. The murdered victim
was in the pond
A horrible duty lay before him-he must
drag the pond and recover the corpse With
the assistance OF the entire male population
OF the village (the women Were probably at
nome with their heads under their pilIows)
the constable dragged the pond and after
some hours of hideous anticipation, he sue
ceeded in dragging out blood-stained pail
in the bottom of which was a small hole
The day before mine host had killed
couple of pigs and in the dead of night he
had taken the blood, accruing from the
sticking operation, in the pail, with the
fixed purpose of working up big sensa-
ton 1t was his misfortune, rather than
his fault, that the sensation lived so brief
ly. But the truth advertised his inn almost
as we'll as the "'orrible crime" and his
business is now worth twice what it was
before the occurrence, despite the fact that
the local police have their knife in his side
halfway police are even more often wor-
ried by the doings of these sensation-manu-
facturers. A very large percentage Of the
alleged crimes committed in connection
with railways are pure inventions of the
bogus victims.
On one occasion a commercial traveller
was discovered under the seat of a COM
partment of train running from London
to the north; he was bound and gagged.
and all his bags had been ransacked. He
assured the railway police that two fellow
passengers had suddenly attacked, bound
and gagged him, and then searched his
bags. He did not think he could identify
his assailants if confronted with them.
The case mystified the police greatly for
time. But at last they were able TO
prove that the whole affair fictitious;
and eventually the commercial confessed to
having worked it all up by himself with
what object, however, still remains mys-
terry.
A young country doctor went so far as to
commit a daring burglary upon his own
premises but short time ago. He forced
open a ground floor window. ransacked the
surgery and dining and drawing rooms, col
lecting all the valuables in a sack; and
then changing parts he rushed out of the
house and chased an imaginary burglar
across half a mile of open country.
Returning home. empty handed, of course
he Immediately alarmed the police, who
discovered that burglary had been COM
tad hut hot 1,1olx fhn
| thieves had been too eager to beat their re-
| treat to carry off their plumber. The young
doctor maintains now to his intimate
friends that his dodge was one of the finest
advertisements a young practitioner could
desire.