Omaha daily bee., 1910-01-23
SOME TAKERS BEFORE COOK
Wise Ones of Yesterday Fooled in the
Same Old Way,
"REMINISCENCES WITH A LAUGH
COnndinR Mu%ltitudes Wonder at
Cardiff Giant, stuffed Sea Ser
pent, and Freak stories
of Explorers.

Frederick A. Cook as the first of the pole
finders can extract a few grains Of com
fort from the fact that hey are not the
first OF the human family to be fooled.
History is dotted with records Of the Cook
variety, and one need not go far back into
the chronicles OF the last century to find
similar experiences, though somewhat
localized.
Chester A. Hull. a product OF the wilds Of
New York, perpetrated the Cardiff Giant"
and other fakes on the country. one day
a friend came to the little newspaper office
where Hun was the presiding genius and
offered TO advertise for sale two or three
acres Of land near the town of Cardiff.
The mail that day had brought a letter
from Hulls brother, Joe, who resided In
Chicago. The brother's letter said that
In his wanderings about town he had found
an excellent stone man in the back shed
or an ambitlOus tombstone sculptor. The
figure had been hewn out of a solid rock
the sculptor having followed as nearly az
he could the picture OF a man in a school
physiology. The stone man, and the acres.
produced in the mind Of Chester an idea.
He could sell his friends land. make some
money for himself, and create a furore in
newspaper circles, II his idea could be prom
erly managed. The man with the land was
agreeable, and after much trouble, expense
and caution, the stone man was hauled
frcm Chicago to Cardiff, and at the solemn
hour Of midnight the stone man was buried
on the land that was for sale. Shortly
thereafter the man who owned the land
turned up the Cardiff giant while blowing.
me land and the giant were promptly sold
at a good figure and Hull was left in the
lutch, Of course. The giant was carted
about oyar the co,,nt,,. 40 --A.At.-a
It had a hard time for even a stone man.
Once It was attached for the bills Of the
Snowman and lay several years, cold and
lonesome, in a freight house at cheyenne.
Wyo. Eventually it was taken on the road
again, and finally reduced to common.
everyday lime, by the destruction of a
railway station in Missouri, which was
burned while the Door old giant was staying
there one light.
once attired In a sheepskin, spotted with
paint to represent a leopard's hide. and dec
GRATED with a head-dress of bright feathers
and red flannel, Hull traversed central New
forK as an African explorer and lectured
upon the wonders of the region of Lake
Nyanza and the head-waters Of the Nile.
Notwithstanding the absurdity of the lee
ture and the transparent fraud of his cos
tune, he imposed upon the innocents and
gathered In many ducats. Then he went to
California and In a little while many east
ern papers published, simultaneously, an
account from Hull of an expedition to the
North pole under the of Octave
FaVy. This account declared that the
expedition had reached Wrangel ISLAND and
that Profs. Thomas Newcomb, Harry Ed
wards and others, who were really news
paper men and actors, well known to the
Sah francisco public, were making anato-
mical examination of immense mastodons
round imbeded in the ice cliffs of that mys-
terious quarter Of the globe.
George Was "a Lulu.
The Joe. Mulhatton of the eighteenth
century was George Psalmanazar. a
French adventurer, who, having Travelled
extensively in Europe, and finding himself
eVerywhere pushed for funds, determined
TO raise the wind in an entirely novel
and unheard Of fashion. He had a taste
Tor reading, and, in the course of his desul-
tory studies became much Interested in
China and the east. He determined to pass
himself off as an oriental, so assumed
a fantastic garb which he declared to be
that commonly worn in Formosa, manu-
featured for himself a ritual Of worship
and prayer, which he ostentatiously OBJ
E1RAASt anu Will a. COllleQefAJe
went to England, where he passed for a
Formosan noble, Going diligently to work
ne prepared an account of the island, CIV
ing a fun description Of it's geography.
botany and zoology, together with its his
tory and the manners and customs of its
inhabitants. Much to his satisfaction the
joke took. his hoax was universally be-
leNed, his book sold and he
became a literary and social lion. Many
years elapsed ere the fraud was discovered
and In the meantime P-salmanazar's his
tory became a classic, was translated into
several languages OF Europe and quoted
by learned philosophers, who, whenever
they wished to illustrate an unusually
curious phase of human nature went to
m for their material. The fraud was
certainly one OF the most clever ever per-
petrated, for its narratives were so clrcum
%stantial, so much In detail, one part tailed
so well with another. that in default Of
other knowledge, nobody could say it was
not so. He even Invented a language which
he reduced to grammatical form, and gave
samples of poetry and literature
sufficiently clever in style and matter to
deceive even the very elect Not until Psal-
manazar himself confessed the deception
was the mystery cleared up,
Another French Freak.
Nearly three centuries ago. or to be ex-
act, 299 years ago, there was a great ex-
plorer7~who sought the northwest passage,
which was the dream Of explorers in the
seventeenth century as the North pole has
been the dream OF explorers OF a later
generation. He had made several attempts
TO find that mysterious and ever-eluslve
passage to Cathay, and at last had been
told of a mighty river far in the interior
OF a new continent, which would lead him
to the salt sea of the west. He wanted
to make another effort to reach that great
river, and had gone to France to enlist
the aid of the king and the mobiles in sup
plying him with the needed equipment.
This great explorer was Samuel de Cham
plain, the founder of Quebec and the dis.
coverer Of the great lakes.
At the same time there was another who
was ambitious for fame as a great and
successful explorer. But he wanted to gel
his fame without the toll and hardships
encountered by all the others This am.
bilious young man spent a winter in Can.
ada among the Indians. One day he sud.
denly appeared al Quebec, just as a shiE
was sailing for France. His acquaintance
l and frianda ware anNfot,s a., haa- - -