476 MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS I 



surprised that any scientific observers should not have 

 at once detected the unmistakable evidence against its 

 antiquity. l 



Various suspicious circumstances presently became 

 known. It was found that Farmer Newell had just re 

 mitted to a man named Hull, at some place in the West, 

 several thousand dollars, the result of admission fees to 

 the booth containing the figure, and that nothing had 

 come in return. Thinking men in the neighborhood rea 

 soned that as Newell had never been in condition to owe 

 any human being such an amount of money, and had re 

 ceived nothing in return for it, his correspondent had, 

 not unlikely, something to do with the statue. 



These suspicions were soon confirmed. The neighbor 

 ing farmers, who, in their quiet way, kept their eyes 

 open, noted a tall, lank individual who frequently visited 

 the place and seemed to exercise complete control over 

 Farmer Newell. Soon it was learned that this stranger 

 was the man Hull, Newell s brother-in-law, the same 

 to whom the latter had made the large remittance of ad 

 mission money. One day, two or three farmers from a 

 distance, visiting the place for the first time and seeing 

 Hull, said, &quot;Why, that is the man who brought the big 

 box down the valley. On being asked what they meant, 

 they said that, being one evening in a tavern on the valley 

 turnpike some miles south of Cardiff, they had noticed 

 under the tavern shed a wagon bearing an enormous box ; 

 and when they met Hull in the bar-room and asked about 

 it, he said that it was some tobacco-cutting machinery 

 which he was bringing to Syracuse. Other farmers, who 

 had seen the box and talked with Hull at different places 

 on the road between Binghamton and Cardiff, made simi 

 lar statements. It was then ascertained that no such box 

 had passed the toll-gates between Cardiff and Syracuse, 

 and proofs of the swindle began to mature. 



But skepticism was not well received. Vested interests 



1 See Professor Marsh s letter in the &quot; Syracuse Daily Journal,&quot; 

 November 30, 1869. 



