THE LABRADOR ROMANCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3738, 24 September 1886, Page 3

THE LABRADOR ROMANCE.

(Daily News, August 4th.) Our surmise, or rather our conclusion founded on the information wo were able to obtain last Thursday, as to the distress m Labrador turns out to have been within the 'mark. The reports were not merely much exaggerated, they provo to have been an absolute hoax, and to hovo originated m Bomo person's idea of selE-intcrest or conception of a, joke. Evidenco has now come from all quarters to show that they have no foundation whatever. The Government showed a praiseworthy alacrity m telegraphing for information, and the roplies to their inquiries set the matter at rest. The Admiral on the station has heard nothing of tho distress, except to hear it denied. The Governor of Newfoundland js etill more emphatic m his

espre^im of incredulity; and tho Attornoy- j General of tho Province, who is at present I m London, has roeeived a formal contradiction of the whole story from a private source. Nothing now remains perhaps, but to theoriso on the relation of the rep-jrt to one or other of the known forms of mental disease. But th's is a question for the experts ; ami wo have no doubt it will receive full justice m the forthcoming issues of the medical journals. On the whole, wo inclino to the supposition of a joke, for self-interest sould hardly have any end to servo m connection with the doings of these obscuro Indians nnd Eskimo. It was well done; and the picture of tho Eskimo devouring the Indians — wo quote from memory, but perhaps it was Iho other way — tho white settlers burying the Indians to cheat the Eskimo of their revolting men], and the bears moving down on the settlements to make short work of all three, showß talents that, if confined to merely unremuiicrnted fiction, have certainly mis6cd their mark. It requires a real turn of tho hand to do this kind of fooling well, and it has rarely been more neatly done. If the author had not been too lavish of his victims he might have prolonged his amusement, A multitude of tho starring exceeding the whole population of the region naturally excited suspicion at the outset. To the inventor of such a mystification life must scorn flat now that it has returned to its normal course ; and perhaps his only way of prolonging his satisfaction m the freak for a day or two longer is to re-read the journalistic comments which his fiction evoked.