Omaha daily bee., 1899-01-07

than stories OF occasionar raids OF faro lay
outs on Clark street impromptu pugilistic
! encounters in Parson Davies gin mill, and
so on. So he took couple Of days oil,
carried a big COB of copy paper to his room
and sat down to indite one that would give
| the sleuths OF the town little exercise.
| The yarn he evolved would have been
daisy had 1t appeared as fiction in the col
umns of highly spiced newspaper OF
Paris. Sprung, however as gospel truth.
with big names to back It up, and with
| completeness OF detail such as is adver-
| tsed by the projectors OF stage specialties,
| It certainly was casper even for chicago.
| It was the story lone page with pictures)
| of duel that had been fought in a South
Side park at gray dawn of the morning
before publication 1t was duel OF the
most approved limelight pattern-rapiers'
| the two gents to the encounter wearing
soft bosomed. frilled shirts; seconds stand
ing by with long and hooded machintoshes'
surgeons for both parties standing by
| contiguous clump of trees; one man badly
| wounded other pinked in the left arm, ana,
/ finally, the appearance upon the scene OF
| the innocent young thing in skirts VINO hau
been the cause of the whole fracas-a chorus
| girl figuring in the second row OF the SIN
| bad operatic extravaganza, which was lheh
| running merrily at the Chicago opera mousse
! Oh that was a hot yarn. all right. one OF
the contestants was represented as young
southern gentleman the scion OF the top
most family of Mississippi tname not re-
vealed). and the party of the second part
| to the savage and bloodthirsty encounter
was Baron Kalnoky the son of the prime
minister of Austria The baron was rep
resented as having met the chorus girl N
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 py
her because she loved and was going TO
marry the scion of the swell house OF MIS-
sssippi, and as having finally, IN vortex
| OF rage slapped the countenance or the not
young member from the sunny southland
| Hence the duel. The pair OF duelists WERE
of course, spirited away Tin the story
| after the fight and the way they eluded the
machinery of justice during the few exciting
days after the publication Of the story was
| certainly a caution. They just seemed to
have dropped off the earth completely
"Of course, all the rest of the night police
| reporters were compelled to make the best
| answers they could to the Where were you
! at?' question when they were hauled up for
| not having got hold of the big story OF the
| day The yarn was cabled abroad TO all OF
! the metropolitan papers of Europe and cor
! respondents we're sent flying to Dig up the
| old Baron Kalnoky prime minister or Aus
! tria who was stopping at a little inn In an
| inaccessible part of the Tyrolean mountains,
taking a rest from the cares OF state. The
name of the son of the Baron kanoky
didn't appear in the Almanac de Gotha, TO
be sure, but, then, the correspondents were
instructed to find out from the old gentle
/ l., 1,I mott nT
something like that whose name was en-
/ titled to show in the almanac. The old
gentleman grinned in the teeth of the cor
| respondents who found him out in his
! Tyrolean mountain fastness. He had never
had a son In his life. he said and that's all
there was to it. This was cabled to all or
| the Chicago papers, but the only modihcn-
tion that the young man who wrote the
story would append to 1t was that the mill
tary mustachioed gent from across the sea.
who had fought account of the second
! row chorus girl, had represented himself to
be the son of Austrias premier. He hung
| on to the story so persistently that he made
it stick and he wasn't dropped down the ele-
,ator shaft of the newspaper he had faxed.
He held his end up in weird police stories
for six months after that, when along
comes the famous prima donna l mentioned
when I began to tell you about him. He
fascinated the song bird, perhaps by reason
of his oriental, seethng Imagination, and
they got married within month after their
first meeting He's been her prosperous
manager ever since.
interviewing Colonel IngersOII.
Then there was that extraordinary fake
Of which the cherub- faced Colonel Bob
Ingersol was the victim. Ingersoll hap
pened to pass through Chicago on his way
| to Butte, Mont, where he had some busi-
ness in connection with the Davis will case
! Che having been one of the lawyers for the
contestants of that famous WILD, and he
stopped over in Chicago to take days rest
before resuming his journey. One of the re-
| markable clique of Chicago hotel reporters
| nailed the colonel in the corridor of the
! Auditorium hotel and asked him If, instead
! OF being on his way to Butte, he wasn't
| really bound for st. Paul, whittier all OF the
| sports Of the country were just then re-
| pairing to attend a big prize fight that was
| to take place within a few days The
colonel not only rebuked the playful in
sinuation, but he launched out on frenetic
| and fierce TRADE against the whole business
| OF prizehghting. He called it baboonsh and
| brutal and spent good ten minutes telling
how strongly he reprobated prize fighting in
| all it's forms. Well, the next morning one
| of the prominent Chicago dailes came out
| with three column interview with Colonel
| lngersoll, in which the lawyer and lecturer
was made to talk learnedly under the head
| ing Flights / Have Witnessed Colonel
| Ingersoll, according to the interview, had
attended about every big prize fight in this
country and England since the days of
Yankee Sullivan, and he was represented as
having taken a huge delight in relating all
of the various points in these fights that
especially appealed to his knowledge OF box
ing. The colonel was on his way to Butte
by the time the story was published, but he
got hold of the interview In all of the
papers along his line of travel The letter
which he wrote repudiating the interview
wasn't published in its entirety, but, for all
that. it remains to this day in my mind the
standing ideal of all that is most forcble /
direct and sledge- -hammersh in modern
English. II is grievous to say that the
young man who wrote this interview wasn't /
ruthlessly discharged. He was, instead, |
told not to be quite so explicit henceforth, !
and he continued with the paper long
enough to do partnership act on a big
final hotel fake in company with the first |
mentioned hotel reporting fakir who wrote |
the interview with the signor about the |