Weekly Arizona journal-miner. [volume] (Prescott, Ariz.) 1903-1908, 1903-08-12
ONLY A LITTLE
SCRAP OF PAPER
But It Exposes a Fakir
of News.
How An Alleged Newspaper Learn
ed of the Election of
a Pope.

Our evening contemp has been in
dulging in whole lot of windjam-
ming lately, boasting of its excellent
news service. When the late pope
died it announced that it had received
special telegram ON the subject, and
proceeded to elaborate nearly col
umn of nothingness, from an empty
cell in the editors Uranium, on the
subject.
The Journal Miner made, no men
ton of the incident but was suspi-
cious that the alleged telegram, said
by the paper to have been received by
it, was obtained from little extra dis
tributed by the Journal-Miner on re-
ceipt of the telegram at this office
from the Associated Press announcing
the event.
At eleven o'clock on Tuesday, Aug.
4, the journal Miner received the fol-
lowing telegram from the Associated
Press:
Cardinal Sarto, a patriarch OF
Venice, and one of the greatest preach
ers in the church. was elected pope
this morning.
On receipt of this trap was laid
to catch this boasting, windy news
fakir and it succeeded admirably, as
he tumbled into it and swallowed the
bait without gulp. About fifteen OF
twenty slips of paper we're printed
containing the following:
EXTRA"
ga telegram received this morning
announces the election of Cardinal
Canutelli as successor to Pope Leo
Kill"
Not wishing to deceive the public
the name of the Journal-M Miner was
omitted from the slip and only few,
not to exceed twenty of the slips were
circulated, but the majority of them
were placed where the news fakir of
that alleged newspaper would be GER
tain to see them.
The name given in the extra, as that
of the new pope, is SORT of Chinese fcg
Can you tell who although i, has a
beautiful Italian orthography aud an
Italian rhythmic sound, and it looked
good to the news fakir.
He Immediately proceeded to build
glaring head lines over an ar
ticle three quarters of column
long announcing the election of
a mythical person, Cardinal "Canu-
telli," as pope, describing at length the
curling of the smoke from the chin
ney of Sistine chapel, and the condi-
tions existing in the secret chambers,
where the conclave was in session, and
of the great struggle that had taken
place.
In fact the announcement of the
election of Cardinal "Canutelli'' was
written up in the most graphic style
of the fakir, and closing with this
profound sentence:
1.-The selection of Cardinal Canu-
tell comes as a surprise, as he has
never been considered among the pos
sible successors, although being an
Italian, and a close confidant of the
late Pope Leo"
OF course the announcement of the
selection of an alleged person who
never existed except ON little slip of
paper, would naturally come as sur
prise, and probably the greatest sur
prised person was the author of the
above paragraph, when he discovered
how easily he had jumped into trap,
with both feet, which had been set ex-
clusively for him. The fact that he
goes on to say that this mythical per-
son was a close confidant of Pope Leo
shows that he neither cares for accur-
acy or truth when drawing on his i'm
agination for news.