gs, of extra folio size, got up in Italy, in
the highest style of art, and illustrating the "Moon Hoax."

Here, in New York, the public were, for a long time, divided on the
subject, the vast majority believing, and a few grumpy customers
rejecting the story. One day, Mr. Locke was introduced by a mutual
friend at the door of the "Sun" office to a very grave old orthodox
Quaker, who, in the calmest manner, went on to tell him all about the
embarkation of Herschel's apparatus at London, where he had seen it with
his own eyes. Of course, Locke's optics expanded somewhat while he
listened to this remarkable statement, but he wisely kept his own
counsel.

The discussions of the press were very rich; the "Sun," of course,
defending the affair as genuine, and others doubting it. The "Mercantile
Advertiser," the "Albany Daily Advertiser," the "New York Commercial
Advertiser," the "New York Times," the "New Yorker," the "New York
Spirit of '76," the "Sunday News," the "United States Gazette," the
"Philadelphia Inquirer," and hosts of other papers came out with the
most solemn acceptance and admiration of these "wonderful discoveries,"
and were eclipsed in their approval only by the scientific journals
abroad. The "Evening Post," however, was decidedly skeptical, and took
up the matter in this irreverent way:

"It is quite proper that the "Sun" should be the means of shedding
so much light on the Moon. That there should be winged people in
the moon does not strike us as more wonderful than the existence of
such a race of beings on the earth; and that there does still exist
such a race, rests on the evidence of that most veracious of
voyagers and circumstantial of chroniclers, Peter Wilkins, whose
celebrated work not only gives an account of the general appearance
and habits of a most interesting tribe of flying Indians; but,
also, of all those more delicate and engaging traits which the
author was enabled to discover by reason of the conjugal relations
he entered into with one of the females of the winged tribe."

The moon-hoax had its day, and some of its glory still survives. Mr.
Locke, its author, is now quietly residing in the beautiful little home
of a friend on the Clove Road, Staten Island, and no doubt, as he gazes
up at the evening luminary, often fancies that he sees a broad grin on
the countenance of its only well-authenticated tenant, "the hoary
solitary whom