Perhaps at the Sun office, perhaps in the tap-room of the Washington Hotel, Finn met Locke, and they went socially about to public places. Finn told Locke of the work on which he was engaged, and said that, as the moon story was already being put into type at the Journal office, it was likely that it would be printed on the morrow.
“Don’t print it right away,” said Locke. “I wrote it myself.”
The next day the Journal, instead of being silently grateful for the warning, denounced the alleged discoveries as a hoax. Mr. Bennett, who by this time had the Herald once more in running order, not only cried “Hoax!” but named Locke as the author.
Probably Locke was glad that the suspense was over. He is said to have told a friend that he had not intended the story as a hoax, but as satire.
“It is quite evident,” he said, as he saw the whole country take the marvellous narrative seriously, “that it is an abortive satire; and I am the best self-hoaxed man in the whole community.”
But while the Sun’s rivals denounced the hoax, the Sun was not quick to admit that it had gulled not only its own readers but almost all the scientific world. Barring the casual conversation between Locke and Finn, there was no evidence plain enough to convince the layman that it was a hoax. The Sun fenced lightly and skilfully with all controverters. On September 16, more than two weeks after the conclusion of the story, it printed a long editorial article on the subject of the authenticity of the discoveries, mentioning the wide-spread interest that had been displayed in them:
Most of those who incredulously regard the whole narrative as a hoax are generously enthusiastic in panegyrizing not only what they are pleased to denominate its ingenuity and talent, but also its useful effect in diverting the public mind, for a while, from that bitter apple of discord, the abolition of slavery, which still unhappily threatens to turn the milk of human kindness into rancorous gall. That the astronomical discoveries have had this effect is obvious from our exchange papers. Who knows, therefore, whether these discoveries in the moon, with the visions of the blissful harmony of her inhabitants which they have revealed, may not have had the effect of reproving the discords of a country which might be happy as a paradise, which has valleys not less lovely than those of the Ruby Colosseum, of the Unicorn, or of the Triads; and which has not inferior facilities for social intercourse to those possessed by the vespertiliones-homines, or any other homines whatever?
Some persons of little faith but great good nature, who consider the “moon story,” as it is vulgarly called, an adroit fiction of our own, are quite of the opinion that this was the amiable moral which the writer had in view. Other readers, however, construe the whole as an elaborate satire upon the monstrous fabrications of the political press of the country 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.
We confess that this idea of intended satire somewhat shook our own faith in the genuineness of the extracts from the Edinburgh Journal of Science with which a gentleman connected with our office furnished us as “from a medical gentleman immediately from Scotland.”
Certain correspondents have been urging us to come out and confess the whole to be a hoax; but this we can by no means do until we have the testimony of the English or Scotch papers to corroborate such a declaration. In the mean time let every reader of the account examine it and enjoy his own opinion. Many intelligent and scientific persons will believe it true, and will continue to do so to their lives’ end; whilst the skepticism of others would not be removed though they were in Dr. Herschel’s observatory itself.