Omaha daily bee., 1899-01-07

| lived. lie sent DOWN the story OF MS own
death and asked us to hold 1t and add It to
| his space after he died and send check to
widow. He wrote he had been out in the
mountains below town looking for a deposit
| OF gold on the farm OF Eli I'm, and,
| while returning on horseback, the animal
| became frightened at a bear which sprang
out OF a thicket and ran away. He, the Liar,
was caught in the limb OF tree a la Absa-
| lom and hung in the tree for two hours. He
was discovered by farmer, who carried him
| to his house, where he died within short
| time. We held the story for two months,
| and, when he finally died with consumption,
, we printed the story out of reverence TO MS
memory and sent an enlarged check to the
| widow only to find out he was never mar
red."
| Some Chicago Fakes.
1.-The guileess, innocent looking young
man." says writer in the Washington
Star. "who did the hotel interviewing for
one of the most famous Of the Chicago
| dailies-he's now the chief OF staff OF big
American theatrical syndicate-used to get
so chesty at times when there was no genu-
| inc news in his line to be secured, 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 snake
| the whole continent and to project rum
BILE beneath the thrones of the crowned
heads across the sea. His most eXtraor-
dinary achievement in this line was his
! interview with a famous Italian statesman
| travelling incognito through the umteu
States, and registered yesterday at the Hotel
| Richeieu, whence he departed last nlght
| for San Francisco For hugeness OF con>
! ceptlon and minuteness of detail this IN
terview was surely wonder. The great
.I,t
sented in the interview 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. He talked
! at length respecting these plans, and in
very significant paragraph he stated that
| such was the unsatsfactoriness of the pom
! tiffs position in the polity of the kingdom
| of Italy the pope meditated changing, IN
| the very near future, the site OF the molly
see from Rome to Berne, Switzerland. The
| interview two double-leaded columns OF
! It, got into type on the first page OF the
newspaper that employed this hotel-report-
| ing genius, and 1t was an 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 Richeleu that no such 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 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 as to the possible removal Of
the holy see from Rome to Switzerland, and
| in general the deuce of a row was stirred up
| by the interview scribbled by the bland,
guleless looking young reporter, VITO is now
| drawing big pay for writing about this or
| that actress loss of her jewels, how such
and such corpulently inclined nightingale
| Of the stage decreases her weight, etc. He
stuck it out that he really had got the in
| terview' precisely as it was published-'per-
haps not at the Richelieu, but in Chicago, all
right he said-but that, having made a
| solumn promise not to reveal the name and
| title of the interviewer, 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 Chicago. I'll tell
you about that one later on.
DIR. 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 DR..
| Cronin was murdered, and they didn't have
| the least particle Of success. young man
! who's now running about dozen fancy
tail meat shops, with onyx counters, all over
1 ~ ~, tInt Tod ,,
one of the most conservative of the Chicago
morning newspapers in the capacity Of
night police reporter. Well he went out
| and found the cottage wherein DR.. Cronin
| was murdered. He picked out deserted
| wooden shack way over on the outskirts of
| the town and he scattered 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
| loaded pages (Which were illuminated with
about dozen big pictures) telling just how
| he had accidentally happened to hit upon
the cottage wherein the murder OF DR..
Cronin had been committed. That, too, was
a 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 promptly
| arrested and taken before the grand jury,
| which was waiting for the submission of all
the evidence in the case before returning in
| dictments against the men held on suspicion
of being involved in the murder. He calmly
| repeated his story in detail about the man
ner of his discovering the scene of the
| crime and he couldn't be shaken from il.
| He didn't have detail twisted and he stood
a blistering cross examination without a
! vince. He couldn't be cowed out of his
fake-it was a long, long time before the
general belief in the story was eradcated-
and he was sent to jail. Every few days he
| would be dug out of jail TO make another
| appearance before the criminal authorities
anent his wonderful bit of detective work
| but he didn't switch on his story a little bit
| He was in the Cook county Jail for one
| month, giving no sign whatever of willing
and then they turned him loose. He was
! nicely installed in the meat business before
the true location of the Cronin murder was
established, and so he didn't particularly
mind the puncturng of his minutely-
worked out fake.
Chicago's Famous Duel.
Then there was that famous fake about
the duel in one of the parks on Chcago's
South Side. An ingenious young man, who
afterward married famous prima DONNA