"BREAKING THE OIL MARKET."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1822, 23 April 1888, Page 3

"BREAKING THE OIL MARKET."

The oorrflFpordeut of the " A{?e," dating from New Yvrk, M^voh 1, writeß : — An interesting story comes frem Ohlongo of a trick by which the petroleum market waa raided a short time ago, and a handsome Bum of mont^y went into tha packets of the raiders The funny part of the * flu I r is that the plot waß the work of a play writer who had written a piece to be performed on the stag". He had arranged what he thought would be a taking plot, and the inure he thought about it while' he was ntiting out hia play the more ha thought it a good thing. His name was Gardner, aid he waa a newspaper rep iter, who hd w rked oapaporo m the oil regions, kne>v all abour, the workings of the oil welia and tbe effects of the discovery of new well?, and especially of new territory, on the oil market. His pJay contained fuar ohuraotera — first a newapaper reporter ; second, a amart young tran who could keep hia month ahut ; third, a legitimate broker on the Exchange ; fourth, a man who claimed to be an oil operator. He determined to oarry oat his play m reality, and m order to do so went to Chicago and obtained a situation on one of the daily papers. He managed to be assigned to work that made him acquainted with a firm of brokers m go d standing ; he cultivated their acquaintance, and by giving them several tips of oonseqaenoe at diffareub times secured their confidence and friendship. Then he made friends with reporters m other offices, und was very " chummy " with several of them.

Ono day he startled his broker fclßnd3 with the assertion that be could break the oil market whenever he wan'.ed to Of course, they ware interested at once, and then ho palled out his play and reid to th- m from the manuscript. They also saw It wkb a good thing, and entered into i ;he scheme to "produce tho phy,' but not on the Btage of a theatra. One of the paria waa to be played by Gardneand another by oae vi the brokers ; the other partß were aeaigned to IMcb'.rd Galvin aud Alexander Kono, the f rmer a middu-aged actor, and the latter a yonng m»n «ho was known to the brokers. G*lyin was engaged at a drama' io -gency, and was to receive 40iol aDd hi 3 expenses for one night's parforraauoe m case ho played hla part properly, and dido'c "give the anup away." The four performers aotually oame together and rehearsed their parta not only once but twice, and then the trap that was to cat oh tho oil speculators was eat and made ready for the springing. And thia is the way it waa sprung :— lt was arranged that aa Imaginary-oil well should ba located on the farm of one ft, 8. Harris, eighteen inilea from the railway station at Carral, Illinois, and Reno waa sent to that place, whore his part of the acting was to be p-rforraed. The actor Galvn registered at the Briggs Houar, Oaicago, aa Motlb M'Liuahlln, of the firm of Bradley, M'Laughlin and Co, , and m the meantime Gardner, who had picked up anothor roporter, atrollod along the street and entered a beer saloon, where he head invited his fellow quill ddver to tako a drink The broker dropped m as if by the murest accident, an-.l was invited to join m a beer, and when the casual question wus asked if there waa any new?, he asked if they had heard o£ the oil discoveries m southern Illinoia. Gardner waa eo^pticiil und treated the broker's story with ridicul-j. The broker insisted that he was telling the truth, and that the man who owned the well was at tho Briggs House, and if they wanted to be satisfied they h j .d better go and find him. Gardner refused to go, but tho other reporter made a dead run for the Brings Monae, where he found tho pretended oilman, who Bhowed him a bottle of genuine potroleu.n from the wo:l (it i hid been carefully brought from a woll m Pennsylvania), and exhibited a despatch winch ho had just received from tho mnart young man iiono, at Carmi. It read as follow* : — li Woll coadoueato flow at intervals of twenty minutes Powers estimates the output at eighty barrels an hour. Gaß stioajr, and can be heard miles away. Will look for tanks yii Btiort lino railway." While th'a reporter was being duly loaded, Gardner waa engaged m lookmg up reporters tor other papers, and one after another they were drawn into the net by the Bkilful performance of Gardner and his brokor fcleud, Some of the ae\npapers wired to Oartni, whloh is only a email station, where there is only one operator,, The innocent fellow ase-i the aubstauce of the despatch, whloh had been filed at the office, and, of course, thia confirmed the story of the man at the hotel and of all the rest ooncerned. The next morning the papers were fall of it ; there van a break In tho petroleum mir"ket, aud by Belling short and duly manipulating the markot tho fi>:m of roapootable brokers cleared enough honest money to make a divide that netted tho enterprising Gardner a clean 20,000d01, or £4000, and turned a handsome figure Into the Bank account of the brokerage firm. The plot succeedod so well that it waa tried again ; bnt In the second performance somebody squealed or was discovered, and the wholo snap failed. Gardnee has resigned from his Chicago paper and is living comfort* ahly on tho proceeds of hla genius. If he goes on aB he has began he will rise to a high poßitlon m the world (poaolbly with the vAd of the hangman) and when age comos on he onn i>lklo poacefally down the hill of life crownpd with tho memory of his many virtue