Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-16
A BIG MINING SMINDLE.
IT WAS IN NEW ZEALAND AND
 RANKS WITH THE CUTEST.

RANKS WITH THE cUTEsT. | A Quarrel Between Owners of Adjoining
 Claims Taken Into Court and the Prop
 erty Wen Advertised-The Trickster,
 Cleaned Up a Sum in Big Figures. | Besides its scenery and its former large yield
 of gold, the Shotover river is celebrated
 throughout New Zealand for one of the big | gest and most ingenious mining swindles eve, | papetrated in these southern colonies 1 Among the most remunerative mining enter l prises in the district had been the sluicing oi the terraces which border on the river Two l claims in particular were famous for the 1 splendid returns they had given. These ad joined one another, and each was the prop.
 srty of three or four working partners, most
 of the men being old Californians and nc
 shares being ever made available to the pub
 hc-the thing was too good for that Tue l stories circulated of the wealth of these for.
 tunate miners were probably exaggerated, as | such stories usually are. The quantity of
 gold which from time to time they passed
 over to their bankers was, however, pretty
 well known, and as the men looked after and worked on their own claims, it was clear that there was no wasteful management to run away with the profits.
 SETTING THE TRAP
 considerable sensation was caused through all the district when it became known that a dispute about boundaries and claims for encroachments had sprung up between these two prosperous firms. One party had, in the course of it's operations, contrived to cause mass of clay and shingle to fall over on to the auriferous material laid bare for working in the others claim. There was a case in the local warden's court, and then an appeal to the supreme court and a jury
 Work was stopped on both claims pending a decision Ill the suit The partners in the claims had to go down to Dunedin, where the court sat, and so had various mining experts and other witnesses who had to testify to the serious loss the injured party must sustain by the alleged encroachment The books of the claimants had to be laid before the jury to demonstrate the richness of the ground, the right to which was contested. The suit be- came naturally the talk of the town. How far the litigation had gone do not remem- Der, but it was still pending, either on the original proceedings or on appeal, when it be- came known that negotiations had arisen with a view to a compi ,mise.
 Inc proposal was to amalgamate these rich claims on @ fair basis and so render all ques- taons Of encroachment and disputed bounda- ries immaterial. Then it appeared that one or two of the men stood out, and it was given out that rather than agree to the amalgama- boS- el,o No was at all surprised when the leading fnan- cial brokers of the city, solid men, Scotch men and sound Presbyterians all, in whom the public had unlimited confidence, had made arrangements with the proprietors of both claims to put upon the market the shares of the 'Shotover Terrace Mining Com pany, Limited;" the provisional directors of which company held an offer of the proper ties on terms, the advantageous nature of which was described in those glowing phrases In which the promoters of stock companies so we'll know how to revel. The original owners were each to have some moderate sum in hard cash, but were chiefly to take out the value of their interests in paid up shares Never was company more quickly foated.
 THE GUDGEoNs sNARKD
 Everybody, literally everybody, who had anything to invest, and numbers who had nothing, insisted upon having shares These were selling at a premium as soon as the al- lotment was made, and it appeared certain that the golden treasures of the Shotoyer terraces were going to make all Otago rich. Three hundred thousand dollars ill hard cash were quickly paid up, the company was or ganized, directors appointed, the manager selected, operations on a largely extended the shareholders was immense
 It was not very long, however, before sinis- ter rumors began to circulate. These rich claims appeared suddenly to have become tracts of barren gravel. Big checks for wages were signed by the directors every week, but of dividends or returns of any sort there was no sign. Nor from that day to this has that valuable property ever returned 8 cent to the shareholders. The truth was discovered just when the funds of the com pany were coming to an end, and an investi- gating committee of the shareholders who were sent up to find out what it all meant, were let in to pay their own expenses It is hardly necessary to mention that the paid up '~~N> 6A'SA oS SAAo oA puOpIlSLOTS u8Q been carefully unloaded on to the public a, full rates before the bubble burst. The en- croachments and the quarrel arising out of them, that brought about the jury trial, were all skillful inventions to catch the ears of curious public and to spread abroad the belief that here was a real Fl Dorado that these men were fighting about Never in the history of mining swindles, lengthy and won- drous as that chapter of human history is, was moro elaborate conspiracy conceived and executed, nor was any more absolutely Cor. San Francisco Chronicle.
 Scenes of Famous Poem.
 Tho Vale of Cashmere, where Lalla Rookh | was married, and many of the scenes of the l famous poem are laid, is 200 miles from the | last point of the railway, travelling north l