HOAXES, HUMBUGS AND SPECTACLES by Mark...

HOAXES, HUMBUGS AND SPECTACLES by Mark Sloan (Villard Books: $25; 162 pp.) . Though divided into categories like Hoaxes and Humbugs (1877’s Solid Muldoon, a putative missing link made of Portland Cement), Feats of Strength (The Mighty Atom, capable of bending an iron bar with his hair) and Stunts (Germany’s Alexandre Patty, who could walk up or down stairs on his head), this curious book is nowhere near as rational as it seems. Rather, it is a collection of the most downright peculiar photographs its compiler has come across in four years of searching out the odd and obscure. Where else are you going to find a picture of the Dalton Gang, safely dead, or a gigantic portrait of President Woodrow Wilson formed by the combined efforts of the 21,000 officers and men of Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio? A personal favorite would have to be a dive Mrs. Eunice Padfield and her carefree horse took to mark the Fourth of July in Pueblo, Colo. Must have been quite a celebration.