Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1910-01-27

| original and unpublished poem by that
author It attracted wide attention,
and was almost universally accepted
by the critics as genuine, but when
an offer of a large sum came for the
manuscript by a collector the fake was
acknowledged.
1t is hard to determine to what
class the great Moon hoax properly be-
longs, whether among those against
science or literature. So complete was
it as treatise on science and astron-
omy that it entrapped the great Ara
go into accepting it. It's author was d
literary genius, with very large
knowledge of science and astronomy.
It purported to be the story of how
/ Sir ohm Herschell had constructed q
powerful telescope, and had been able
to bring the moon in so close a range
of vision as to be able to distinguish
animals and men moving on it's sur
| face. Known truths of science were so
cleverIy interviewer with the imagi-
nary that the closest observer had
hard work to distinguish between the
| false and the true
The people of England have had at
least two gold bricks offered them in
! the shape of spurious claimants to the
! crown. At least half a dozen claim
ants to be the Dauphin of France, the
| son of Louis XVI, who was supposed
| to have been starved to death during
the French Revolution, have appeared
at one time or another In 1903 Otre-
| f1ef, a monk, pretended to be Demetri-
US, son of the Gar Ivan, who had been
murdered. We know little of any re-
ligious impostors prior to the coming
| Of Christ, although the Bible tells us
that several false Christs had arisen
before the coming Of One now acknowl-
| edged by the Christian world as the
real Redeemer But since his day
claimants of divine rights have been
many. Mahomet, perhaps, is clearly
entitled to stand at the head, and to-
day his followers are counted by the
millions.
Evidently getting his inspiration
from the story of Mahomet, Joseph
| Smith, the father of Mormonism, dis
covered his Bible written on plates of
gold, which had been hidden for ages
until the angel guided him to the hid
| ing place. The first book of Mormon
did not contain all the present creed
of that sect, but was added to from
time to time by Smith, who, like his
prototype, MahOmet, had visions many,
in which he talked with God. In the
year 743 one Adelbert, a Gaul, pre-
tended to have received a letter from
Christ, which had fallen down from
heaven as he walked the streets, and
was picked up by him. He soon OBJ
tanned many followers, who went out
into the wilderness and lived as John
the Baptist had lived, on locusts and
wild honey. They soon fell under the
ban of Rome and were put down.
| Spain furnished one of the most
successful and most impudent of his
class of impostors in one Gonsalvo
Marten, who in 1860 claimed to be the
angel Gabriel who had been sent down
! to earth to reform the churches and
| drive out error. Lady Hester Stan
hope, the favorite niece of William
Pitt, the great minister of Great Brit
ain, withdrew to Syria, and there de-
cIared herself to be the bride of the
| Messiah.
America has furnished its share of
religious enthusiasts. Among them
William Miller stands out the most
prominent, because of the number of
! converts he made In these later days
we have had Alexander Dowie, Elijah
II, with his noted city Zion and his
many troubles with the courts But
it would take page after page to tell of
all the religious fakes that have led
the people at one time or another.
One of the most impudent as well as
successful fakes ever perpetrated was
that of the Cardiff giant, or petrified
man. In making some excavations
near the town of Cardiff, in Onondago
| County, New York, the workmen I'M
earthed this supposed petrifaction, OF
at least this was the claim made oy
those who were engineering the thing.
1t was taken over the country and put
on exhibition in all the large cities,
proving to be a drawing card for the
exhibitors, who reaped a comfortable
| fortune from it. The whole thing was
a fake. ct had been cut in Chicago
out of a block of gypsum.
Forgeries for political purposes have
been quite common in America The
most noted of these is the Morey let
ter of 1880, when Gen Garfield was the
Republican candidate for the presi-
dency The letter pretended to have
been written in reply to one addressed
to him by Morey, in which Gen. Garfield
took strong grounds against the ex-
clusion of the Orientals.
A few years later another political
letter, which. however, was not forg-
cry, caused a widespread commotion in
this country and resulted in the call
ing home of the British minister at the
suggestion of President Cleveland. Mr..
Cleveland was a candidate for re-elec-
ton. and the tariff was in issue. A
pretended former subject of Queen
Victoria wrote to Mr.. Sackville-Wes
the British minister, saying that while
he was an American by adoption he de
sired to vote in the way that would
DO the most good to Great Britain, and
asked for his opinion as to what eff,
feet the tariff would have on the moth.