AN AMAZING FRAUD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 865, 14 July 1910, Page 4

AN AMAZING FRAUD.

Human nature will probably remain the same to the end of the human chapter, and rogues Avill continue to profit by the weaknesses of their fel-low-men. One of the strongest of human passions is greed, and frauds without number have owed their successful perpetration to the fact that it was to this passion that they made their appeal. In his reminiscences, now running through “Blackwood’s Magazine,” Sir Robert Anderson relates the story of an amazing fraud that was perpetrated on a great City house—a fraud that, owing to the large sum of money involved, will stand for all time as a monument to human folly. A genius claimed that by a process he had discovered the bulk of any quantity of gold could bo increased by onc-half at a trifling expense, and he offered to sell the .secret. His dupes accepted his terms, subject to his giving satisfactory proof, and to test his discovery they proposed to supply him with on© hundred sovereigns. He rejected that amount of gold as too small for him to waste time on, as his mysterious process was a tedious one, and finally, after skilful negotiations, he contrived to arrange for £20,000 in sovereigns to be given him for the purposes of bis demonstration. A house was taken, and a laboratory fitted up there. The gold was placed in tanks, the chemicals asked for were supplied, and the great experiment proceeded, with elaborate precautions against larceny or fraud. The man insisted that no one but himself was to enter the laboratory, and he was to be rigidly searched every time he left the room. His experiments lasted for many weeks, and ho passed in ami out a large number of times. One day he was missing, and when the door was eventually forced open, the tanks that had contained the gold Avere empty. AVhat had become of the 20,000 sovereigns? That mystery Avould have remained for over unsolved if the criminal had not, through sheer bravado and pride, supplied the solution. Save in the knowlcdjpa that sooner than ex 1 lose themselves to the ridicule of the world, and the consequent loss of prestige, the firm ho had SAvindlcd Avould say nothing, he Avrote to them and revealed his method. Every time he left the laboratory, the goldheaded case he carried Avas packed with sovereigns I