The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

56

THE STORY OF "THE SUN"

try and the various genera and species of its party
editors. In the blue goat with the single horn,
mentioned as it is in connection with the royal arms
of England, many persons fancy they perceive the
characteristics of a notorious foreigner who is the
supervising editor of one of our largest morning
papers.
The New York showmen of that day were keen for
novelty, and the moon story helped them to it. Mr.
Hannington, who ran the (liorama in the City Saloon —
which was not a barroom, but an amusement house-on
Broadway opposite St. Paul's Church, put on "The
Lunar Discoveries; a Brilliant Illustration of the Scientific Observation of the Surface of the Moon, to Which
Will Be Added the Reported Lunar Observations of Sir
John Herschel."
Locke had spoiled a promising talc for Poe-who tore
up the second installment of Hans Pfaall when he "found
that he could add very little to the minute and authentic
account of Sir John -Ierschel"-but the poet took
pleasure, in later years, in picking the Sun's moon story
to bits.
"That the public were misled, even for an instant,"
Poe declared in his critical essay on Locke's writings,
"merely proves the gross ignorance which, ten or twelve
years ago, was so prevalent on astronomical topics."
And yet the hoax, Poe admitted, "was, upon the whole,
the greatest hit in the way of sensation-of merely popular sensation-ever made by any similar fiction either in
America or Europe."
"From the epoch of the hoax," he wrote, "the Sun
shone with unmitigated splendor. Its success firmly