Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-21
CAPITALISTS TAKEN In.
FALL RIVER CITIZENS MOURN THE
LOSS OF 100000.

They Did Not Catch on to the Right End OF
the Florence Industrial Boom-Their
Money Went Into Corner Lots Instead Of
Iron Works.
FALL RIVER, MASS, Jan. 20.-There are
o number of the leading citizens here in
| anything but a pleasant frame of mind.
They are the cute business men of the town,
rich in experience, many of them having
sounded all the depths and shoals OF
financial navigation, and with as keen a
Yankee edge upon their business instincts
as can be found anywhere. Yet they are
ready to throw up their hands, and confess
that they have been taken in and sheared
of all their shrewdness and experience by
the hated race of rebel brigadiers.
1t came about in this manner: Two years
ago an agent of the industrial boom in Flor
ence, Ala, came to this city with his boom
and his story of the marvellous natural re-
sources and ultimate future of Florence.
He was judge and gentleman, and armed
with credentials from Philadelphia capital
lists and a persuasive tongue, he succeeded
in getting capitalists here to invest in the
Florence iron works, then built on paper, to
the tune of nearly 100000. Some Of the
investors were disinclined to invest in
futures of any kind, in view of past expert
ence, but the judge assured them that this
was sure winner, and that the Florence
boom would grow while you waited, if it
wasn't deemed advisable to hold it back.
So the judge and the money of the investors
departed for Florence
Expectations didn't realize; the boom
progressed so far as to enable those who were
steering it to gather in large raft of tender
feet and build the iron wrorks. Then 1t
fattened out. The investors here and else
where clamored for information and ex-
plantations They got very little of either,
and that was of an unsatisfactory quality.
The reason given for not operating the
works was that there wasn't q dollar left in
the treasury and that the game could not
proceed further unless stockholders had
mind to ante more cash. This nobody
seemed inclined to do, and so things re-
mained at standstill and nobody spoke
above his breath for fear he would give him
self away to the public as sucker"
The annual meeting of the corporation
was held last week, and the men in this city
who had flashed up 100000 under the
seductive influence of the judges eloquence,
appointed Colonel w. r. Warner, of the
firm of Cobb, Bates & Yerxa, and W. Ell.
Chase, of the Union Belt Company, to go
on and represent them and get an account
ing. They went and have just returned.
From the officers of the Florence iron
works they say that they could get little
satisfaction, but in the course Of their in
vestigation they discovered that neither
they nor their friends here were in the con-
Germ at all. What they had pooled in had
been used to boom land instead Of manu-
featuring stock, and at present quotations
land could be bought by the acre tor the
price obtained for square foot a. the time
they invested. At the stockholders' meet
ing no attention was paid to their protests,
and Immediately after it adjourned the
directors went into executive session and
denied themselves to the envoys from Fall
River. They have returned and reported,
and that is why lots of men have an anxious,
careworn look in this city to-day.