Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-03-21
BOGUS INFORMATION.
Pope's Death Has Been Announced
 Twenty-two Times.

Twenty-two Times.
 One day about three weeks ago there was a tumult in many newspaper of- fees in the United States. Reporters transcribed columns from encyclope- dias and dictionaries of biography News editors labored With shears and paste-pot. Engravers bent over half tones. Compositors wrestled with large takes" of copy. Telegraph op- orators watched receiving instruments like hawks.
 And all because another fake re- port of the popes death had come un- der the sea from Paris. Schooled by long experience, hardly a single man in any newspaper Ol44ce in the country believed. But lAere was still the chance that it might be true-it might not, but it might-and so everything was made ready-portraits of the pope were unearthed or hastily made, reams of biographical matter were brought forth from every-ready "morgues.' Preparations were made to ''get the news on the street, in fifteen, ten, five minutes.
 But in little while there came a dispatch from Rome saying that the supreme pontiff was sleeping calmly in his bed at the Vatican, and that his marvellous good health remained un- impaired.i And then the news editors of America chalked up another crime against the account of "the-death-of- the-pope-liar. He boDs up every few months. Sometimes he sends forth his story early in the day. and it is the news editors of the afternoon pa hot other times he tickles the wire late in the night and while the world is calm ly reposing the overworked slaves of the morning papers have their chance to doe or die During the last five years, by actual count, twenty-two re- ports Of the pope's death have come by the cable. Some have come from Rome and these haze caused the greatest
 fusheS" ;others have come from Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London and even from such unlikely sources of authentic news as Madrid and Monte Carlo. No one knows why these eenseless fakes concerning the venerable head of the catholic church are sent broadcast. Ceftalnly there can be no gain in cir culatlng them. But that they have been coming ever since the pope reached his S5th year is history. and that they will continue to come until at last the sad announcement of the holy fathers death is made at tha Vat- lcan Is fully believed by every irate news editor in the land.
 And this cheerful prevaricator is not the only one that Europe boasts. Eng l1shmen and Germans are fond of re- ferring to the ''faking" habits of the American "yellows," but as a matter of fact the -yorld's most ambitious news manufacturers are not Yankees The famous Shanghai liar" was an Englfshman, and it was a true born Briton that sent forth lurid dispatches during the early part of the Spanish American war from Mole St Nicolas, Hayti. It was a German that circu- lated the recent "fake'' concerning the marriage of the queen regent of Spain, and 1t is German, according to the pest accounts, who sends forth the perennial rumors of a war in the Balkans. From Russia comes a steady stream of fakes about the czar's al- legged insanity-from Russia, that is, by way of Hamburg and Paris And think of the endless false rumors about Europe's petty royalties which come from Berlin, Brussels and Buda- pest, and of the industrious gentleman who supplies the Vienna Neue Freie Press (which, in turn, supplies the rest of the world) with startling gossip about the shah of Persia and the ameer of Afghanistan!
 [ Everyone remembers the wild stories sent under the sea by the Shanghai liar. It was he that originated the story of the massacre of the foreigners in Pekin. Easing his yarn upon the fact that Baron von Ketteler, the Ger man minister, and one or two other whites were killed, he spread broad cast story that every foreigner in the beleaguered city had been murdered in cold blood Not content with this, he added fake details of the massacre sickening, revolting details which made the whole world shudder. His story made the circuit of the globe. | The present writer at the time it ap- peared was in the West Indies. When the first bulletin came, the little daily papers down there ordered the story 1 in full from London, and the cable tolls were $2 a word. n all, it is probable that the newspapers of the world before their readers. When the denial
 
 profit and loss, and resolved to be wary of news from Shanghai in future.
 The newspaper men of the English towns along the China coast-and there are some first-class newspapers in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore were highly incensed by the ''liar's" activities, and he was roasted'' in their journals. but until the end of the Box 1 or troubles he f1ouriShed Ouite in | contrast to his fate was that of an American newspaper man who sent forth exciting stories of devastation and rebellion from Jacksonville imme- diately after the great fire of year be- fore last. He was spotted in few days and other correspondents and local men at work in the town held a meeting. There was a conference with the provost marshal-and the "fake'' stories ceased.
 Why the European "fake'' news dis7 seminators so easily succeed is appar- ent. Suppose one of them sends forth,