Editorial
A strange and unlikely little discovery has been
made in the city that is challenging humanity's place in the animal
kingdom. Walter Brimlee, a custodian at New York's Grand Central
Station, was mopping a restroom floor when a small piece of paper
caught his eye. At first glance it looked like a folded-up gum wrapper,
but upon closer examination it looked like a tiny newspaper. That was
exactly what it was. It measured less than one inch square.
"I thought it was one of them novelty prints they
make like them tiny Bibles so I brought it home to show [my wife],"
said Brimlee.
Brimlee tried to read the paper under a microscope
but could only make out the title of the paper: "The Sewer Times."
Thinking this was strange, he took it to the Columbia University School
of Journalism for them to study on the condition they would share with
him what he found.
What Brimlee had found was a tiny newspaper
allegedly
published by mice.
According to the masthead, the paper is based in a
city somewhere beneath Grand Central Station. The publisher is one Milo
Casey. Warren Marsh, a professor at the Columbia University School of
Journalism, was the lead researcher in charge of transcribing the
twenty-four page publication. It took four months to transcribe the
entire paper.
The University's official stance on the discovery is
that it is "an amusing joke fabricated by a skilled craftsman with a
wild imagination," but Marsh had conflicting remarks.
"If it's all a farce, then it is a painstakingly
constructed one. Twenty different authors are by-lined with columns,
movie reviews and so-on attributed to each of them. There are police
records and very detailed marriage announcements. I mean, you could
almost forgot you're reading about rodents," Marsh said. "If it is all
a fake, I just don't get why someone would go to all of this trouble
and let the thing get lost in a public bathroom."
Brimlee said he is convinced of the paper's
authenticity.
"I'll never harm another mouse," Brimlee said. "You
would do good to do the same, mister. They're smart. Really!"
Although the idea of intelligent mice running an
underground news organization is bizarre, there is compelling evidence.
The paper was dated for the day that Brimlee found it - a morning
edition. The production of the paper also caught Marsh's eye.
"The typeset and marks at the edges of the paper are
consistent with a press that an early twentieth-century newspaper would
have used. The ink is also unusual. It wasn't anything you would find
in our modern printing. This paper was pressed. I don't know how anyone
could have done this. I just can't explain it," Marsh said.
The discovery has generated enough interest to
prompt a search of the sewer underneath Grand Central Station by local
engineers, but nothing was found.
One engineer who asked to remain anonymous said they
searched for two days in every known corner of the sewer.
"I just don't think there is anything down there,"
he said.
Mice are commonly used in laboratories because of
their homology, or genetic similarities, to humans, but those
similarities do not run deep enough to suggest they possess the mental
faculty to communicate on this level. They have been conditioned in
labs to respond to positive and negative reinforcement. They have even
been trained to do tricks, but no mouse has even been known to display
intelligence beyond that of any non-human animals.
True or not, the discovery is amusing and
compelling. So, the New York Times will exclusively release stories
from the paper in a four-part series called "The Sewer Times," as the
paper calls itself. Until a conclusion is made about the discovery, we
hope you enjoy these pieces as much as we have.
Here
are the headlines of three stories that will appear in the series:
Council Leads to No
Solution for Cat Problem
A special task
force is assembled to find a way to save the mice from attacks.
Community Stands up to Cat: Local Mouse's tail
Returned
The community
comes to the defense of victim of tail theft.
Missing Mouse
Found Alive
A missing mouse
is found half-alive in a freezer after hiding there for days.
Image information: Mouse Reading Newspaper - Web source: Flicker