PECULIAR HOAXES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20705, 1 May 1929, Page 6

PECULIAR HOAXES.

WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED. About 80 unemployed men spent a week digging trenches in the Northwood ami’ Harefield district of Middlesex recently,! only to find that they had been the victims of a cruel and stupid hoax. The joker” who had -.“employed” them 5 disappeared before pay-day came round. Hoaxes seem to appeal to a, number of people with a perverted sense of humour.’ One “ jest ” repented again and again is to call out a fire brigade to extinguish a• nonexistent fire. The sound to one such rcy cent hoax in London was a serious streetaccident. : Another stupid joke is the “fake”’ bottle message. Two cases of bottle mee-’ sages have been in the news in England.! during the past few months—one puruorts ing to come from a man who got away from the steamer Titanic, and the other from Captain Amundsen. Experts con-; aider the authenticity of both to- be very, doubtful. ■ , One of the worst jokes of this kind oil. record occurred after the disappearance! of the Imnnu liner City of Boston, ’in’ 1870. The ship’s fate is, a mystery to this day—she vanished “without trace” in mid-Atlantic—but a bottle message,, which was found just afterwards, was believed by many people to be genuine. It was afterward proved a “fake,” but it caused the. keenest suffering to all who had relatives or friends aboard the ill-’ fated vessel, A practical joke of another kind was described at a Sandwich court some time ago. A woman with a vivid imagination had been fooling tho Customs for some time by telling them stories of a gang of armed dope-runners, who hud their headquarters at Margate. She also supplied “ information ” concerning a submersible’ craft .engaged in drug smuggling. On one occasion, when she had said that a consignment of drugs was to be landed ftt Pcgwell Bay, a number of officers were' mustered there to receive the smugglers. '' Perhaps the most famous practical joke on record is that of the unauthorised excavations in a London, street, which resulted in traffic being held up and a great gulf left for tha local authority to fill; Many people believe that this is merely a legend, hut in a debate in the HomseM Lords a year or two ago Lord Montagu of Beaulieu confessed that he Inspired an escapade of this kind 25 years ago. His friends dug on, unhindered, at the corner ' of Throgmorton street for six days. The# an official arrived from the City Surveyors Department and started to ask questions. But it was 10 days before the road was restored to its original condi* tion.

There is an element of humour in this that most practical jokes lack, but anyonh who attempted to repeat the jest to-fiay might find himself in an- awkward pre* dmament. The broad rule for safety m practical poking .is “Dont do it.” Too often the mke misfires and recoils on the head of the perpetrator.’ . -