A Facile Liar.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue 7372, 21 November 1898, Page 4

A Facile Liar.

LATEST. (Melbourne Argu9.) The most variegated and delightful lie in M. de Rougemont's " stupendous adventures " is contained in the latest instalment just published. The veracious Grien make 3 an excursion into the realm of natural history, with the result of producing the beat unconscious joke which has emerged into the press for many a day. This Swiss Munchausen gravely relates how " One d-iy I decided to go and explore one of the islands in search of wombats, whose skins I wanted to make into sandals for myself. I knew that wombats haunted the islands in countless thousands, because I had seen them, rising in clouds every evening at sunset." This statement; is enough, of course, to set all Australia grinning, from York Peninsula to Gape Leuwin. Grien, in a word, has settled the scientific question raised by the walrus in "Alice in Wonderland." Everyone remembers the immortal verse:—

" The time has come, the Walrus said, To talk of many things; Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, Of cabbages and kings, And why the sea is boiling hot, And whether pig 3 have wings." But the delightful M. de Rongemont is able to settla the question which perplexed the walrus. The wombat, with its lnmpish body and burrowing habits, has very much in common with the pig. It certainly has the specific gravity and the waddling gait of a pig. And yet M. de Rougemont has seen the unpoetical Australian womb.it rising in the air sentimentally, and by conntless thousands, " every evening at sunset <" 'i'his surprising performance certaily proves that the wombat has not only wings, but imagination. *Alice in Wonderland" contains nothing more interesting than this ! M. de Kongemont's adventures are indeed, as their proud editor declares, amazing," Lies have their seasons—times when they spread like an infection, to the astonishment and despair of sane mankind. The lie is generated in some crazy or knavish brain, and if fortune favors it, it sails out to find half the world waiting, widemonthed, to Bwal'ow it And the scale of the lie makes no difference to its acceptance. It may be, as Rudyard Kipling sings:— " A ouite nnwrecbable lie, A most impeccable lie, A watertight, fireproof, angle-iron, sunkhinge, time-lock, steel-faced lie ! Not a private hansom lie, Bat a pair and brougham lie; Not a little place at Tooting, but a country house with shooting. And a ring-park, deer-park lie." Bnt it makes no difference. The lie is swallowed, horns, hoof, and tail, by delighted thousands. This strain of gullibility, this liability to a sudden paralysis of common sense, this ravenous appetite for fiction, undeniably rsists in human nature. It has long periods of slnmber, bat it has also sudden times of awakening, when almost anything becomes possible. Impostures at such a time multiply like microbes.