The Green Harp Swindle.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 145, 20 August 1872, Page 7

The Green Harp Swindle.

The Green Harp is the beach claim at Coromandel in which gold was first discovered six or seven months ago, and round which not only numbers of other claims have clustered, but in consequence of which a large and solid township lias been built. Its first experimental crushing of ten tons yielded HOoz. The shareholders were working men, who stuck to their shares, and accumulated a few hundredweight of rich specimens, which were freely exhibited in their hut on the ground. Besides this, there were 200 tons of general stulf only waiting the erection of a machine to be c; udied. Gold was often seen in this stuff, and judging by the ten tons, a splendid result was anticipated. There are 5000 shares in the Company, and they were selling at one time at £l4 each. Afterwards they fell to £7, and were steady at that for some months. The New Zealand Company (English) put up a very fine battery adjoining the claim, and after many delays the crushing commenced. Rumours of various kinds then got afloat—the chief being that the richest of the stone had been robbed and privately crushed from time to time. The correspondent of the Cross wrote in the ordinary course, and stated the result of the first crushing to be 473 ozs. amalgam. Shares fell, and he was freely abused as having interested motives, for no one believed it possible the result could be so small. The Chairman of Directors, Mr T. Howe, then wrote to the Cross that the statement was true when their reporter was there, but that 1305 ozs. had since been added, making 1778 ozs. in all, from the first fifty tons of stone. Confidence was restored, especially as the directors were not selling out. So long as they continued holders, the mine must be right. Imagine, therefore, the dismay when it was suddenly discovered that these men had been quietly selling out through third parties, and had not a share left among them. Of course, this could only be known when the transfers came to be registered, as the only name known to the buyer was that of the third party, to whom the original holders afterwards transferred them en bloc. Worse still, however, when the original directors, having thus rendered themselves ineligible, were replaced by others, it was found that there were only 519 ozs. of amalgam on hand from the whole of the specimens and 120 tons of quartz. Even this amalgam has been found to consist chiefly of copper and lead, with a trace of iron. The net result is 110 ozs. of gold, worth (say) £3OO, —less the cost of crushing, which must be nearly £IOO. The balance is all that is left to meet debts of about £BOO, and instead of a dividend a call is inevitable. Shares are down to 10s., but sales have been made even at ss. As the original directors and shareholders carefully advised all their friends to buy, the losers are largely among working men, and others, holdine; only a few shares each,—who can ill afford to loso.

American Wit. Clerical editors of newspapers in America do not appear to distinguish themselves by i refinement of style or amenity of language, if we may judge by the following extract from a leading article in the Indianapolis (U.S.) Evening Journal, of which the Rev. G. C. Harding avows himself to be the editor : "The red-headed and ribald wretch who edits the Sunday Slinger has lately been straining his giant intellect in the production of that very delicate and finely flavoured species of wit which consists in the invention of spurious middle names for the subjects of his satire. We appreciate this sort of humour, but we do not like to indulge it. It is too exhaustive. But we can do it. For instance, the name of the saturnine and sorrel-topped gladiator of the Slinger is Enos B. Reed. We don't know what the ' B.' represents in the grand combination ; but we will assume it to mean Booby, Beat, Baboon, Bilk, Bloke, Boanerges, Bunghole, Bots, Butter, Bingo, Boss, Bass, Bumpkin, Baggs, Barber, Bat, Baby, Backsheesh, Blackmail, Bandanna, Bandicoot, Bard, Bawbee, Beans, Beast, Beauty, Boots, Bedaub, Bespatter, Blinker, Blowhard, Bogey, Boar, Boozy, Brass, Bray, Beer, Bricktop, Buchu, Bugle, Buffoon, Buzzard, and we have wit enough in a single paragraph to last the Slinger a twelvemonth. It isn't so very exhausting, after all."