Show Historic Hoaxes Dy By 1 ELMO ELIO SCOTT WATSON O C Western Newspaper Union The White Elephant THE TIIE year 1884 1684 is known In circus circus- land as th the white elephant year P P. P T. T Barnum Darnum had secured from Slam a genuine sacred white elephant and it drew such crowds that one of his rivals decided he must have a white elephant too He lie whitewashed one of his pachyderms pachy derma derm and renamed It the Light of Asia Aila The dazzling whiteness of this beast set oft by its black velvet trappings far outshone the rather dingy dinU whiteness of Barnum's Darnum genuine genuine ine animal Barnum Darnum denounced it as a fake faile but to prove It genuine enuine Its owners allowed visitors to touch its trunk which had been enameled But Dut they didn't d dare re enamel Its whole body the whitewash could be scrubbed off oft each night and thereby thereby there there- by hangs a tale At each performance perform perform- ance the Light of ot Asia was wai stripped of its trappings placed on ona ona ona a platform and beside It stood a learned professor who gave a lecture about the wonderful beast beasL The crowds noticed that the professor professor professor pro fessor skipped about as he be gave his spiel and wondered why The reason was that the elephant wanted to make friendly advances to the professor and he knew that if he allowed the Light to rub against him the whitewash might rub off oft on his black coat coaL For some lome time the war of the I rival white elephants went merrily merrily mer mer- rily on Then Barnum Darnum made a deal with his hll competitor to withdraw the Light of Asia The next season I the elephant was back on the road I but this time in its natural colors colon Eventually the Light of Asia wound up its career as Old John one of the favorite bulls of the Ringling circus The Lancaster School Board ITS IT'S an repeated oft tale that tale that story story sto Ito ry about the school board in Lancaster Lan caster Ohio refusing to have the school house used as the scene Icene of a debate on whether or not railroads were practicable They are quoted as 81 saying that such things as railroads rail tall roads and telegraphs are impossibilities and rank infidelity There I is nothing in the Word of ot God about them If God had designed that His Ilis intelligent creatures should travel at the tle frightful rate of ot IS 15 miles an hour by steam He would have foretold it through His holy prophets It is a device of Satan to lead immortal souls to Hell The tale Is fa only half halt In 1831 IBM a traveler from New York stopped at a little tittle log school house near South Charleston in Clark county and told the pupils about seeing a demonstration n of a new fire wag gon in the East EasL When the pupils took the story home their parents being conservative folk whose minds weren't open to new ideas said laid the school house shouldn't be used for such trashy talk So the school board sent a note to the teacher Hervey Scott who was secretary ofa of ofa a debating society telling him he was welcome to use the school house to debate all aU proper questions but such things as railroads etc Telegraphs were NOT mentioned in their note because the electric telegraph telegraph tele tell graph hadn't been invented yet That came 13 years later The Thc story was tacked on to Lancaster Lan caster because Scott later editor of a paper in that town printed in it a series of pioneer sketches Including including In in- this yarn And that's why citizens of Lancaster ever since have been denying the story which casts a reflection upon the intelligence intelli Intel I gence genre of their forefathers I I e I The Dutch Mail Maili j i MIEN WIlEN type In a print shop becomes be be- I VV comes all mixed up that's pi and Its It's also grief for the newspaper publisher if it this happens Just before the paper is ready to go goto goto goto to press But Dut when it happened to toan toan toan an early English editor he made the best of a bad situation Sir Richard Phillips was his name and he was editor of the Leicester Her Her- ald aid I Just before press time one day a g devil dropped a tray of type Just Justas as it was about to be put into the forms There was no time to straighten out all the ensuing mess so Phillips assembled the scattered type and printed from it in that con con- I With it was a notice that I the Dutch Mall Mail news from Holland Hol ho- I land hand had been received too late to tobe tobe tobe be translated and was therefore be tog ing printed Just as received Thirty years later Phillips is 11 said to have met a reader in Nottingham j I who had carefully preserved his copy of that paper lie He was still stillI I trying to find someone who could translate the news from Holland |