PEASANT’S CREDULITY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5514, 16 December 1929, Page 2

PEASANT’S CREDULITY

SALE OF LAND IN MOON. A strange case of rural innocence is reported in the Warsaw Press. A well-to-do peasant came to Warsaw from his native village to do some shopping. At the market he heard two men discussing the bad times. One man said he had decided to emigrate to the United States. The other man was not impressed, and assured him that America was no use now for those seeking fortunes, and that the moon was to be the next great paradise for ambitious emigrants.

The peasant, says the Warsaw special correspondent of the London “Observer,” opened his big ears wider, and heard what wonderful things had been written in the newspapers about airships and projectiles going to the moon. Apparently that poetic planet had already been reached, and revealed land rich with gold and silver. Insinuating himself into this highly interesting discussion, he soon discovered that the man of knowledge was a mining engineer, who had actually had the good fortune to acquire some of the valuable land on the moon. Soon the peasant was offering the engineer a large sum of money for just a small portion of the land, which was to make him a millionaire. Finally the engineer agreed to this. A lawyer was found. A contract was drawn up. Money changed hands. But the drink which accompanied all this legal business sent the peasant to sleep in the inn where the transactions took place. When he awoke the strangers and lawyer had disappeared with his money, and when he informed the police, who at first took him for a lunatic, he discovered sadly that his innocence and cupidity had cost him a large sum of hard-earned money.