THE GREEN HARP SWINDLE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1249, 31 July 1872, Page 2

THE GREEN HARP SWINDLE.

The Green Harp is the beach claim at Coromandei in which gold was first discovered, six or seven months ago, and round which not only numbers of bth£a claims have clustered, but in consequence of which a large and solid township has 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 hundred weight of rich specimens, which were freely, exhibited in their hut on the ground. Besides this there were 1200 tons of general stuff only. waiting the erection of a machine to be crushed. Gold was often seen in this stuff, and, judging by the first 10 tons, a splendid result was anticipated.' There are 6000 shares in the Company, and they' were' selling at one time at Ll4 each. 'Afterwards they fell to L7> and were steady at that for some months. The New Zealand Company (Euglish) put up a very fine battery adjoining the claim, and after many delays the crushing commenced. Rumors of various kinds then got afloat-^tbe chief being that the, richest of the stone had been robbed and privately ; crushed from time to time. The correspondent of the Gross wrote \] in the ordinary course, and stated the result of the first crushing to be 473 ounces amalgam. Shares fell, and he was* freely abused as hayinginterested motives, for no one believed it possible the result could be so small. The Chairman of Directors, Mr T.Howe, then wrote the Cross that the statement was true when their reporter was there, but that 13050z had since been added, 'making v j7fßoz in all, from the first 50 tons s.toue," Con* fidence 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 thii 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 after* wards transferred them 1 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 5190z amal* gam on hand from the rhbleof the sped* mens and J2O tons, quarts, Even this amalgam has been found to consist chiefly of copper and lead, with a trace of iron, The net result is llOoa gold, worth, say L3OO, less cost of crushing, which musk benearLlOO. The balance is all left to meet debts of about LBOO, and instead of a dividend, a call is inevitable. Shares are down to 10s, but sales have been nude. at ss. As the original directors Wn shareholders carefully, advised all their friends to buy, the -losers are largely among working men, and. others holding only a few shares each, who can ill afford to lose.