Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-03-12
rhe Fraud Outlining Itself.


started for the Santa Clara placers, have
oeen victimized. The whole thing shows
1 master hand at humbug and deception.
1t is singular that it could be played so
in view of the fact that it has |
held the boards number OF times before, |
though on a somewhat minor scale. The
HERALD is able to congratulate itself
upon having done much to render this
swindle less disastrous than it otherwise
would have been. In Santa Monica alone
yesterday morning twelve parties with
teams were arrested on the point of leav-
ing for Lower California by the timely
warning of this journal. Yesterday af-
ternoon we rode Gown to the "city by
the sea- with three gentlemen, who had
Just returned from the "diggin's, F." and
who pronounced chem az unmitigated and
unoonscionable humbug. Testimony of
this tenor is coming in from all directions
By noon to-day thousands of deceived
AID disappointed seekers after gold will
take up the back track. Hundreds of
them are now trying to ride the brake
bea m back to their points of departure.
The railway officials will be busy, for
long time to come, trying to keep their
trains from being clogged with wretched
people who have spent their all in
vain pursuit of this auHferous
Will o. the Wisp.
The Tribune yesterday morningclaimed
this Santa Clara Mountain humbug as its
mining boom. The probability is ex-
treme that no one will be anxious to dis
pute proprietorship with it. Tt will
shortly have to answer a large number
of deceived and cozened people who
had right to expect better things from
a newspaper they trusted. When news
paper publishers, in order to sell few
extra copies of their paper, give color to
the widest extravagances, e day Of
reckoning is sure to arrive, sooner or
later.
Lying of the most extravagant charac-
ter has signalized every phase of this
fake. The quantity of gold actually
taken out of these placers is not large
enough to give four bits apiece to those
who have been fooled into starting for
Lower California. All sorts of improb-
able yarns have been told about the sums
washed out by Mexicans and others, but
the golden ingots have failed to material
ize. A few hundred dollars, according
to Mr.. VIM. Pridham, Wells, Fargo &
Co. g representative in this city, is all
that that company has handled, and it
would certainly handle the bulk of the
output. For the four or five weeks DUR
ing which water can be had, the men
who should average 621a cents a day
would be doing exceedingly we'll. The
probability is extreme that most of the
gold which was represented as being
taken out was the careful accumulation
of months, and was employed as salt
ing operation.
The whole thing is not only fake,
but a deliberate, carefully concerted
swindle. The accounts which reach us
now from the boom newspapers and cor
respondents would be ridiculous if they
were not fraught with disaster to we'll.
there would be room down in the
Santa Clara mountains for thousands OF
miners if they could only find pay dirt.
The use of the subjunctive mood in this
connection is very neat indeed. The re-
mark applies to the whole Peninsula of
Lower California, which stretches down
TO Cape st. Lucas, distance of about
eight hundred miles. If pay dirt could
be found down to the terminal point of
this Mexican province there would be
room for several hundreds of thousands
of miners-nay, for millions. But to find
the pay dirt. There's the rub.
The whole thing was given away to
observing people at the start by the
twaddle about finding quartz lodes as a
result of the incursion of prospectors.
More and better quartz lodes can be
found within sixty miles of Los Angeles
than are known to exist in the upper
portion of Lower California.
The fools are not all dead yet, more's
the pity. Neither is the race of men
who, with conspicuous lack of principle,
fan an unreal and feverish excitement
which ends in the ruin or impoverish-
ment of thousands. By the coming Sat-
urday the full tide of returning treasure
seekers will be on the back track. 1t
would not be strange if they should ex-
press TO our esteemed contemporary, their
Tribune, their full acknowledgements of
its precious mining BOOM"