WIRELESS JOKER AT SEA

Passengers of the Baltic All Stirred Up by Fake Dispatches
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When the White Star liner Baltic, in yesterday from Liverpool, was two
days out of Queenstown, some one who was characterized by the officers
of the liner as "one of those deucedly funny chaps" posted three news
bulletins supposed to have been received by wireless from the east-bound
Anchor liner Columbia, on the Baltic's bulletin board.

The bulletins were written on Marconi wireless blanks, and two of them
were to the effect that Thomas W. Lawson of Boston had committed suicide
in a Boston hotel, and that Japan had presented an ultimatum to Germany
demanding that the latter country withdraw all of her troops immediately
from Chinese territory.

At the dinner table Capt. Smith heard of the messages, and immediately
ordered them taken down. Then he started an investigation, and found
out that no messages had been received from the Columbia at all. The
prepetrator [sic] of the fake messages escaped detection.