Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1889-01-09
THAT ALLEGED HUMBUG
THE ELECTRTc sUGAR REFINING
cOMPANY,s FIASCO.


Pound in .Michigan-wha She Has to
Say-A Suspicion that the Alleged
professor" is Not Dead-Sale of Ten
shares of Stock
New York, January 5.-The leading topic
among brokers and business men, down
town, is the great expose OF the late Prof.
Friends Electric Sugar Refining Company.
Secretary Robinson OF the deiuuct concern
was nearly paralyze by awell.known Wall
street man asking him for ten shares and
offering him $40 each for them. Robinson
told the man the shares were worthless.
The man insisted and the sale was Effected.
The purchase is for the purpose, 1T 10 SAID,
of osoueezing" Howard when caught.
Howard is the man who swore before
notary public that he had seen the PRO
lessor" refining the raw sugar by elec-
tricity.
It ia now limited that Friend is not dead
at all. There has not been anyone 30 lar
that has seen his corpse. His death is
said to have occurred two days before the
blizzard last March.
THE swINDLED ENGLISH SHAREHOLDERS.
LIVERPOOL, January 5.-Shares OF the
Electric Sugar Refining Co. have fallen to
thirty shilIings. Warrants have been is-
sued for the apprehension of Mrs. Friend
and her stepfather, W. e. Howard, director
of the company and who had charge OF the
affairs at the factory in Brooklyn.
MRS FRIEND FOUND IN MICHIGAN.
ANN ARBoR, Mich, January 5.-Persons
interested in the Electric Sugar Refining Co.
frauds at NewYork, have been in consulta-
tion with attorneys here for several days
past. The president OF the company has
beeu here and met Mrs. Friend, the How
ards and Halsteads, all OF whom live at
Milan, this state.
Mrs. Friends attorney says there is no
intended fraud, but the company expected
more than was promised. She says the
company was to furnish the money to
equip the refinery for refining sugar by
Friends ''secret process" The company
alleges the refining was to be done from the
sugar cane, This she claims it can not do.
The contract her husband made was
TO REFINE SUGAR AT EIGHTY CENTS A TON
or sell out his stock and secret for $780,.
900 after everything was running.
The company has been running five
years and put in over 100000, but no
sugar has yet been refined for the market.
Mrs. Friend says the company is trying
to force from her another secret by which
she makes superior article OF sugar from
grapes instead OF getting the secret their
contract calls for. This last she refuses to
divulge for any amount.
No arrests have been made and none are
even threatened by the company's agent
who returned to New York Wednesday.
Mrs. Friend is the only one OF the party
interested in the transaction, the Others
being merely employees.
ELEGANT HOME OF THE FRIENDS.
MILAN, Mich, January 5.-Friend's ele-
CANT home, mile and half east OF here,
was deserted this morning. At the home
OF w. E. Howard, Mrs. Howardswas found
lust setting out to join her husband and
daughter (Mrs. FIR end) at Ann Arbor. She
is sharp-eyed brainy old lady
with q determination not to give
away what she knows, further than
to say il the New Yorkers have broken
open the Electric Sugar Refinery, they have
Lost all their rights, and that it would
have been well il the proceeds had been
lost when Friend died last March," Also,
that she is sure Howard and Mrs. Friend
are able to take care of themselves.
Since the opening OF the sugar business
the Howards and Friends have cut big
swell hene, building elegant houses and liv-
ing as gentlemanly farmers with princrly
incomes from some source not generally
understood, though not without faint of
suspicion. They bought the bes, lived
high, drove elegant equppages, and trav-
eled much hetweetl here and New York.
The village was greatly excited, but not
whit surprised.
PRESIDENT CoTTRELL's STATEMENT.
ANN HARBoR, Mich, January 5.-Presi-
dent Cottrell, cf the Electric Sugar Refinery,
was found at the Islngton this morning.
He denounces the claim by Mrs. Friend
that the contract does not specify sugar
cane sugar but only cane sugar, as an un-
mitigated falsehood. The process is far too
expensive to place it on the market. There
is NO question, he says, but the product
finer than that produced by any known
process, and would sell better than ordin.
ary refined sugar il it could be made from
raw sugars.
The deception consists in the manipula-
tion of refined sugar. instead OF refining
sugar by the new process.
On behalf oil Mrs. Friend the claim s
made that Professor Friend invented two
distinct processes, one for making su-
perior article of sugar from refined sugar,
the other for making it from grapes, and
that the latter is worth millions.
President Cottrell pronounces this a
humbug, but says II there is anything 10
the grape process the company is entitled
to it.