By Mariann McLaughlin

Chain letters. Everyone has either gotten one or has heard of someone who received one.

These letters are deceitful and misleading. They prey on the naive suckers who fall for them. This campus is no exception.

A certain letter was recently e-mailed to students around the college stating it was a little girl's dying wish to have this letter sent to everyone. Supposedly this little girl was diagnosed with cancer. Unfortunately, people around this campus fell for this deception.

Ask yourself, if a little girl was dying from cancer would her last wish be to have this letter sent all over hell's creation? What would be the point?

I personally don't know of any little girl who would make such an outrageous request. Most little girls want to meet the Spice Girls or go to Disney World, not tie up e-mail lines with their life story.

The sad part to this story is not the allegedly cancer-stricken girl, it's the naive and ignorant people who feed right into it, after students were told it was all a lie.

Even the student union president at Charlottetown Centre fell for it. I can understand, to an extent, how he looks for the good in people. But I can't see any good in a fictional story over e-mail. There is no concrete proof that she exists, but he was willing to show empathy for someone he doesn't even know.

This compassion could be taken two ways, either he has a big heart and lots of love to give, or he believes everything he hears. For someone in his position, one would hope that he could tell the difference between facts and lies.

Most people I talked to knew, from their gut reaction, this letter was a hoax. Maybe in the future the student union president will look back and learn from this experience.