Sunday Washington globe., 1902-03-02

Joseph P. Ryan, the ticket agent Of the
Desbrosses street station of the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad, listened to story recently
which exempifes the ingenuity of the
'bunco man" He says that two Kansas
far mers, John H. Williams and James P
Simpson, who conduct large farm about
20 miles south of Topeka, Kansas, while
buying tickets for their home recently con
6ded to him that they had been swindled
out of $500 in scheme which was to realize
the philosophers dream in extracting gold
from GOLDFISH and that though he advised
them to tell their story to the police they
were only too glad to leave New York on
the earliest possible train.
According to their story they had both
spent their lives on a large farm outside of
Topeka, and for the past ten years had bent
all their energies toward the accomplish
ing of their ambition to visit New York, and
about 10 days ago decided that their finances
were IN a condition to allow Of the coveted
trip, The least thing they feared, they said,
when starting out was the wiles of the con-
fdeScc u1an, the trader in green goods or
gold bricks, or the pr0verbial bunko -steerer
for they had pursued course of reading of
of all the literature Ohtainable containing
warning to the bucolic( adventurer in the
great cities
When we arrived ia New York last
Tuesday" +" said in substance Farmer Simp.
son, the older of the two (neither was ap-
parently over thirty-6ve years Of age), I'VE
went to a Broadway hotel, and registered
under assumed names, giving our residence
as Washington, d. c. We did this so that
il might not be known that we were farm
ers, and thereupon be tracked wherever
we went by some smooth-tongued rogues.
We spent all day Tuesday, and greater
part of Wednesday morning, seeing the
sights, going up and down the elevators Of
the tall buildings and visiting the wax
works on Twenty-third street. We evil
IDENTIFY attracted no notice, and soon became
confident that there was nothing in our
appearance to proclaim the tiller Of the
soil.
while sitting in the hotel parlor on
Wednesday afternoon we noticed an old
man of venerable appearance, absorbed in
a huge volume from which he occasionally
took notes in strange characters. He had
an air of great wisdom, and from our OBJ.
servations we took it that he was probably
some celebrated scientist We thought no
more of him, however, and on Thursday
morning we visited the Aquarium We
we're standing in front of one of the glass
tanks filled with goldfish, when our atten-
tou was attracted to a figure that we imme-
diately recognized as the venerable gentle
man we had seen in the hotel parlor the
day before He still carried his book, and
his eyes were bent with deep earnestness
on one of the smaller but most brilliant
fishes in the tank. Then he suddenly ex-
claimed:
TO think Of the simplicity of it. Well,
though it was the work of Lifetime, il GER
tainly has been rewarded beyond my most
extravagaut dreams
Then he began to humble and chuckle
to himself in manner that made us all
curious to know the occasion of his delight,
and l ventured to ask him the cause of it,
He started back suddenly and eyed me in a
suspicious manner Then, looking about
him to see that we were the only ones
within hearing, he whispered
My lifetime's work has been rewarded,
and now l am on the road to princely
wealth. ! have discovered the secret of
the goldfshs color. Further than that I
have discovered that through the peculiar
chemical process Of the goldfshs digestion
seven grains Of pure gold are made and dis
solved IN his body each day. The dissolu-
tion is effected by the scintllation of color.
These discoveries / made years ago and
since then have sought day and night for
a process by which scintillation could be
impeded and entirely stopped. This
formula I have accomplished through the
aid Of liquid air. By my process scintilla-
tiou is stopped completely and without any
injury to the fish, the gold becomes in-
crusted in the scales and fms. and a little
fish which, when proper facilities for breed
ing are obtained costs practically nothing,
can be transformed into a nugget Of gold in
a few weeks
HE seemed 50 sincere and interspersed
his explanations with such convincing
scientific phrases and references that we
were deeply impressed by what he said and
accepted his invitation to visit his labora-
tory on South street We were soon in a
ramshackle building, the lower portion Of
which was taken up py a large fish market
He led us up two flights of tumble-down
stairs and into small back room which
with the exception of a deal table and two
broken chairs, was entirely bare. Unlock
ing closet, he brought out an assortment
Of strangely contrived little boxes and
DQlAlEbt "A ohldAA b0WA NbAAAdAnANE a ndAA
dozen goldfish, and a gas burner and tube.
which he attached to a fixture just above
the table. He asked US to be seated, and
theu busted himself in arranging his ap.
paratus. There was such an air of enthu.
siasm and mystery about these proceedings
that we never doubted for a moment that
we were about to witness a great discovery
After he had completed the arrange
ment Of his bottles and boxes and lighted
his gas burner, he took the cover from a
little iron box, into which he poured few
drops of whitish mixture from a tiny
vial. Immediately there was a sizzling in
the bottom of the box. Then he took one
Of the smaller fish from the bowl and placed
1t in the box.
This fish, he said, has been subjected
to the process for 10 days and consequently,
there are 70 grains Of gold incrusted in its
scales and FMS AS he finished speaking
there was a great sizzling and bubbling in
the bottom Of the box. Then he set ur a
small, thin steel plate over the gas burner,
which in few minutes was white hot. Then
he took the FISH from the little box and laid
IL on the steel plate where ia few seconds