The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-03-20

officers at New York awaiting extra
dition proceedings to take him back
to England, where he must answer
to the charge of swindling people who
took stock in his various companies.
The fact that he seems to have been
one of the in ilnates of, the king and
that among those who lent themselves
to his schemes were titled men of
the kingdom, dukes, marquises, lords
and others of the nobility, does not ap-
pear to have stood to his benefit so
far as escaping the first steps taken
il the direction Of Furnishing him and
making his answer for his alleged
frauds.
His were none of the ordinary get
rich-quick" schemes for alluring the
guileless and m%ercenary of small
means, but colossal projections that
raj into the millions of dollars and
patterned after some of the "mer-
gers" SO popular on this side OF the
ocean. The biggest was a holding"
company with over sixty millions of
dollars of suposititious capital at it's
command. After a brief existence the
crash came and it was found that poth-
ing more tangible than wind consti-
tued the supposedly great wealth of
the oncer A government investi-
CATION followed and it was held that
the directors could not be proceeded
against as a body, they having salts
fed the prosecution that they ere
not parties to the swindle. but merely
dupes, who had relied upon Wright's
representations. Because of some pow.
erful elements that acted as his pro-
tectors Wright was permitted to es-
cape arrest for the time being and it
was believed that the thing had come
to an end for good and all time. But
rights which is one of the. character
istics of the English commoners was
not satisfied and the government was
at last forced into the steps which re-
suited in Wright's arrest as soon as
the vessel on, which he was coming
to America touched the dock at New
York. The shareholders say they will
insist on the mans prosecution and
propose that the whole truth shall
come out, regardless of the fact that
it may strike closer to the throne it.
self than may appear comfortable and
pleasing to the gentleman occupying
it. In fact they intimate that that is
exactly what they want and if any of
the royal family were implicated in
the matter they should not be shield
ed, but made to bear their share of the
responsibility.
Had Mr.. Wright operated in this
country it is extremely doubtful
whether he would now find himself in
the unfortunate ~predicament in WHICH
he is placed. 1t would have been made
to appear that he. was the victim of
! adverse fortune and that those who
lost through his operations were but
unfortunate investors, who had taken
business chances and the chances had
! gone against them, as it occasionally
happens in large and small ventures
into which the element of speculation
enters in large part. Of course, if he
had been the engineer of one of the
plots that have been recently exposed
in some of the eastern cities by which
those possessed of only a few dollars
had been ~defrauded, he probably
would have been arrested, even as
the promoters of some of those rob
bling concerns have been arrested, but
the colossal scale on which he carried
out his schemes and the magnitude OF
the enterprises he professed to en-
gineer would have saved him and in,
stead of now being a prisoner he
would be the recipient of unbounded
sympathy accorded to a daring but un'
lucky Napoleon of finance"
No doubt the esteemed Helena In
= &c.