Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-12-23
ANANIAs VS. MULHATrON.

HVHVtHu vO MulnhI IuVt
Joe Mulhatton has heretofore been
looked upon as the prince of prevari-
Gators in the matter of writing cock
and-bull stories for newspapers, but
the developments of the last few days
have plainly brought the Marietta Ana
Mas to the front while poor Joe must
now take second rank.
! In this connection it is fitting and
appropriate to give brief sketch of
this great inventor of newspaper fakes,
who is a hopeless maniac and an in
mate of an insane asylum at Phoenix
Arizona. At least this is the report,
ough to think that the statement is
merely another of Joe's innumerable
lies. If it is not then his fmitators all
over the world should take warning
from his fate and renounce the evil of
their ways before it is too late. Jos
| eph Mulhatton was born in Pennsylva-
MIA fifty-two years ago. But this is ac-
cording to his own statement, and con-
sidering his reputation as a gorgeous
and ornamental prevaricator, it must
be accepted with a great deal of cau-
ton. AS unique, ornate and bewild-
ering liar, he has a reputation extend
| ing from Maine to Texas. and even
extending across the Atlantic to Eng.
land and France. for the newspapers
of those countries have been sadly
taken in by the Mulhatton stories.
Even in his youth he displayed re-
markabe aptitude in the line of pic
turesque prevarication. He evolved
| from his fertile Imagination a number
of thrilling stories that found their
way into the Pittsburg papers and were
widely copied. AS he grew older and
gained little experience, he branched
out along more pretentious lines, and
framed up an assortment of glittering
newspaper fakes that brought special
writers and sedate scientists scurrying
| across the ocean to investigate alleg-
ed marvellous phenomena which Mui
hatton claimed to have discovered in
remote parts of the country, but which
he really discovered during his idle
moments in some hotel corridor.
Nominally he was travelling sales
man. but lying on tremendous scale
appears to have been his special o9cu-
patton. The Chicago Times-heraid
gives the following as sample illustra-
tions of his genius in this line:
Perhaps his most notable work was
the story of the meteor, supposed to
have fallen in Texas. Under his vivid
imagination and facile pen this meteor
landed in Brown county. covered an
acre of ground, destroyed all the ranch
es for miles around by reason of the
sulphurous fumes it gave off and was
still sizzling its way into the earth
when he gave the story to the news
papers. That glittering invention
sent train load of newspaper repor
ters and scientists into the mesquite
bushes of Texas. They never located
the meteor, but the railroads and
boarding houses and ranchers with |
horses and guides to let did thirty
ing business for several weeks.
The story of a wonderful cave in Pike !
county, Kentucky, was also highly |
decorated work of art. 1t appeared in /
a Louisville paper, and set people on |
two continents talking of the rooms full |
of magnificent jewels, of long halls /
lined with great blocks of virgin gold |
and Of subterranean rivers ripping |
over beds of diamonds. People fiocked |
to Pikeville by the hundreds, and town |
lots sold for 500 as fast as the papers |
could be made out. Even P. T. Bar
mum, the willy old Snowman. was
caught in the trap, and hastened to
Pike county to see if he might be able
10 pick up few rare skeletons or
strange cave dwellers that the excited
discoverer had overlooked. In due
course of time the phlegmatic and pom
derous English tourists arrived In
Pikeville, and helped to swell the re-
ceipts of the hotels and bars.
n.