Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1880-05-12
E SCHEME.


The Pacific Coast to have been
wiped Out by q Tidal Wave.
The Carson Appeal, Of last Sunday. pub
fishes the story given below. 1t reads a
good deal like q hoax from Sam. Davis,
and we are inclined to regard it as such.
But true or false in the present instance, it
is a fact that q similar scheme has been
mooted on more occasions than one by un-
s~crupulous operators. This is the yarn
On last Thursday evening detective Will
kins, in the employ OF the Western Union
Telegraph Company, passed through Reno
with Thomas L. Holster in charge. Hollis
ter was arrested on Sunday last in San
Francisco for tampering with the wires of
the Western Union Telegraph Company.
Through his capture one OF the boldest
stock jobbing plots ever known has been
nipped in the bud.
MONTE cBIsTo GAME.
Through HOLSTER the trick Of cutting
the telegraph wires and sending a'bogus
dispatch to cause a crash in the stock
market, as related in Monte Cristo, came
near being re-enacted in America. The
plan of HOLSTER was to cut the wires east of
Reno, and send dispatch to New York to
the effect that a tidal wave had wiped out
San Francisco, accompanied by an earth
quake which had destroyed Virginia City.
The idea was to smash Pacific Mail stock in
Wall street, and cause a crash in Oomstock
securities as well. How many Spectators
we're implicated in The job there is no
means of telling.
HOW THE PLOT WAS DISCOVERED.
For some months past the Western
Union Company has been aware that their
wires have been experimental with and
have had men on the alert to nab the Of
fender. All efforts to trace the matter up
we're unavailing, and finally detective Will
kins, of Chicago, was detailed to take the
matter in hand. He is a detective and
operator and has had q wide experience in
just such cases as the present one. He
travelled along the line for several weeks,
camping out and living the life Of q pros
pector. About two years ago he found a
place a few miles east of Battle Mountain,
where the wires had been tempered with.
They had been cut and another length put
in which could be detached in a few sec
onds. There were marks on the pole
where some one had climbed quite fire.
quently, and running along the ground he
found an insulated wire which ran north
and WAS partly concealed by the grass and
sage brush. At the end nearest the tele-
graph line the wire was coiled up and by
uncoiling it would reach the main line. He
followed this wire nearly a mile and came
upon
A HOT SCENT.
Here he found a rude cellar dug in the
ground and covered over with branches Of
trees, turf, etc. 1t was out in the sage
brush, and had he not followed the wire
he never would have discovered it. There
was nothing in sight to indicate what the
place was used for, but it bore every evil
dence Of having been at one time inhabited.
Digging in one corner of the place, how-
ever, he found some Leyden jars, strips Of
copper, and some bottles of acid, such as
are usually employed in making a g~alvanic
battery. There was nothing else to be
found, and he watched the place several
days to see if any one would come to the
spot, making his headquarters at Battle
Mountain.
ANOTHER CLEw.
One day at the Battle Mountain depot he
picked up a San Francisco Chronicle, and
saw that a man named Thos. L. HOLSTER
had been arrested for engaging in a saloon
fracas. He recognized the name as be-
longing to a telegraphic operator who was
formerly in Chicago, and had been dis
charged for divulging private dispatches.
He was a man always up to some scaley
trick or another, and the detective CON-
cluded to go down to the Bay and shadow
him. He had no difficulty in tracing him
up, and arrested him in his lodgings Oh
Kearney street.
WHAT WAS FOUND.
In Holsters room sufficient was found
to confirm the detectives suspicious, and
the man finally made a full confession that
his idea was to send a bogus dispatch to
New York to the effect that a tidal wave
had wiped out the coast and an earthquake
had destroyed the Comstock. He pro-
posed to make the tidal wave wash the
foot of the Sierra Nevada. and certain ope-
rators in New York who were in the plot
would make a handsome turn in the de-
probation of Pacific Mail stock and Com
stock securities. He refused to tell who were
in the plot. His plan would have been car
ried out long ago but for the fact that
stocks were SO low that q break at the rul-
ing prices would not enable operators to
realize much. He came to the coast when
Sierra Nevada was $500 a share, and ex-
pected to send the bogus dispatch when it
was at $500. The decline in Comstock Sc
curities deferred him from carrying out his
design, although he had experimental and
tempered considerably with the wires for
months past. He made his headquarters
in San Francisco, and was only waiting for
q l booming market to carry out his plans.
He admitted tapping the wire near Battle
Mountain.
THE DISPATCH.
The following was found by the detec-
tives in Holsters room, written on a
piece of foolscap:
At 10 o'clock this morning, q tidal wave
from the Pacific Ocean swept over San
Francisco, wiping out the entire city in 10
minutes. 1t advanced inland and rose I'M
til the waters were 10 feet deep in Sacra-
mento and Stockton. Accompanying this
oceanic disturbance was a tremendous
shock of earthquake, which was felt most
severely at Virginia City. The mines on
the Comstock are q mass OF ruins. No
further particulars can be gained at pres
ent.
He said he intended to have dated the
dispatch at some station in the Sierras and
send it to the Associated Press. A scheme
so wild however could hardly have been
carried out successfully, as the perfect stu
~pendousness of it would have created sus-
picion in the offices of the New York pa
pers, and the dispatch would probably not
have been published.
A Fine StOre.
Struck by the neatness and taste with
which the store of our enterprising mer-
chant, B. Alexander, is arranged, we wis.,
tied that establishment for curiosity, and