AMUSING PITTSBURG PANIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3198, 26 May 1909, Page 3

AMUSING PITTSBURG PANIC.

The "New York Herald" publishes an amusing account of how was hoaxed,on April Ist by a report from the Pacific Coast that San Francisco was "blown off the map'' by a Japanese fleet, that Oakland was levelled, that an American warship was sunk outside the entrance to the Golden Gate, and that gigantic Japanese* airships were crossing the Rockies and hurling bombs to earth, leaving devastation and ruin in their wake. The panic in the city of steel started when a facetious afternoon newspaper appeared with flaring red headlines: "Japanese s rike awful blow to America; Japs destroy American Fleet, capture cities, and slay inhabitants." Half-an-hour after the "news" appeared the streets weie black with seething masses of excited huhunily. A second edition 'soon appeared. "Roosevelt is hurrying back," it read. "He has se-'zed the liner Hamburg, deposed the captain, taken command, and turned the ship's prow. The vessel is row hsading for the United States and will bring help." So dense was the c;-jwd that the police had their hands full in preventing a riot. Mr George Cole, one of the pity detectives, started the formation of a volunteer military force among the police. Finally the repetition of the date "April Ist" on the bulletins struck the" crowd, and the "war-clouds" disappeared.