FAMOUS HOAXES

Shannon News, 7 April 1926, Page 2

FAMOUS HOAXES

VICTIMS OF PUCKISH HUMOR One of 'the most amusing' literary hoaxes ever perpetrated was the work of no less a celebrity than -the late AC. Swinburne, the Victorian poet. Swinburne wrote regularly for R. HHutton, the then editor of the ’Spectator.’ Hutton used to pass Swinburne’s copy straight on to the printer, and Swinburne, abserving this little trick of routine in the busy editor’s system, one day iturned in. what purported to/be two reviews of the poets Felicien Cossu an Ernest Clouet, with copious quotations from these authors. The poets, however, existed only in Swinburn’s imagination Hutton did not take the joke in good part, and the two men were enstranged for a long time. It was during the war that ‘The Times ’fell a victim to the hoaxer. It received what purported to be a poeim,by Rudyard Kipling and printed iL It was acclaimed- to be in Kipling’s best manner .But. the poet denied it, and the forger remains unknown to |this day. There is, as a rule, only a Puckish humour behind hoaxes. Sometimes, however, fthe' hoaxer is cruel. Such was the man who tendered a cheque for £IOOO to the treasurer of the Middlesex Hospital towards lthe rebuilding of that institution. It was supposed to be the' gift of a rich city merehant. But the merchant knew nothing at all of the offer.

Equally cruel are those hoaxes yvho ring up tradesmen and order goods to be delivered (to certain addresse's. In one recent. case| the street in which the victim’s home was situated was ;hronge<J with carts an delivery vans bearing all sorts of goods. A great hoax was perpetrated, by a man calling himself the Due de Bassa.no. He' proclaimed to It-he world that he had discovered a vast quantity of Napoleonic relics. Orders concerning battles, intimate autograph letters, a death mask and many other relics were produced. He claimed to have over a thousand documents connected with the great soldier. The hoax was discovered when it was divulged that the "Due” was a commoner.

How many people "know that tne word “Quiz,” now part of our language. was the invention of an Irish hoaxer, Daly, the manager of the Dublin Theatre? He wagered that within twenty-four hours he would introduce an entirely new word Into the English language. On every wall to which his men; could gain access tile newly-minted word “Quiz” was chalked. ' All Dublin wondered wnat on earth (this word meant. But Daly won his wager, and the word is now part, of our language. Another great hoax which sounds less marvellous to-day than it did .ben it was perpetrated, was the raise news story thajjt the Atlantic had been flown in three days by a balloon —the .heeling Balloon- “Victoria.” The “New York Sun,” a journal prone to be duped by hoaxers (it was hoaxed with a story of the flowers and denizens of the moon swallowed! this ;ory.