THE ELECTRIC SUGAR REFINERY.
A Gil EAT FRAUD. < The following are particulars of what the i New York .Sun, in exposing the swindle, calls " the Great Electric Sugar Kefining Fraud," for which our cablegrams informed us Mrs Friend hud been arrested last week :—Tho Electric Sugar RefliiDry proponed to take any grade of sugar, and by passing it through a certain electrical process return it in tho highest grade of refined sugar without the loss of 1 per cent, of saccharine matter. The was 4 dol. per ton, and the time occupied 10 minutes, whereas the old process cost Bdols. oOc. and took 24 hours to accomplish. The work was done under Professor Friend's secret process for refining sugar. Offices were taken in Wall-street, New York ; n refiuery with a capacity of 'JO,OOO barrels a day established in Brooklyn. W. If. Cotterill was President of the company. Stock was sold in Europe and Ameviuu up to 1,000,000d015., and work was said to be proceeding- all right. The specimens of refined sugar shown were superior to any produced by tho old process. No one, but Mr Friend (an American of French extraction) and his wife, a man named Howard concerned with Frieud, and a few picked workmeu were allowed in tho factory where the refining was supposed to bo progressing, and no one was permitted to sec tho supposed unique machinery. The stockholders saw only the sugar, said to have been refined by tho process, and which was pronounced by chemists and sugar experts remarkably tine. As tho stockholders heard the machinery at work they took it for grauted everything was right. Friend died last March, leaving the "secret" in possession of his wife, who guarded it carefully. A boom for the stock was created in England, which caused a corses-ponding brisk demand for it in the United States, till the large amount named above was disposed of. The suspicions of the company were aroused when they found that Mrs .Friend had disappeared, and a delegation of the stockholders invaded the secret rooms. A number of machines were there used in breaking the cube sugar into smaller particies and in granulating the coarser grades, and nothing else. There were no mysterious electric apparatus; only crushers. Mot a pound of raw sugar had been refined in the factory. (Quantities of refined sugar, chiefly cube, had been purchased by the operators and prepared in some secret spot with chemicals, which eliminated the ordinary impurities found in all sugars. Tins doctored sugar was tken carted to the factory in bags purporting to contain raw sugar, and when it came out of the " chutes," two floors below, all who saw it were astonished at the i completeness of the process. Willet, : of the Now York Weekly Statistical Sugar Circular, is among those duped and defrauded, and the Euglish stock- • holders have despatched an agent to the United States to make a personal , investigation. President Cotterill has gone West searching for Mrs Friend. i The result means ruin to many. There is no chance to save anything, for the i revelations in the factory show that • the entire business was au absolute fraud. ■ Later despatches say the skirts of the i ollieials of the company are not clean in - the matter. The first president (Woodworth) took large sums of money and was compelled to retire, while Cotterill, the i present president, and Robertson, the I treasurer, both succeeded in disposing of their stock before the exposure came. It had also been discovered that the Friends s served a term in the States in prison. ! Warrants have been issued for the arrest . of Mrs Friend in the United States, Eng- > laud, and Canada.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT18890302.2.38.14
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2596, 2 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)
Word count
Tapeke kupu
616THE ELECTRIC SUGAR REFINERY. Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2596, 2 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
No known copyright (New Zealand)
To the best of the National Library of New Zealand’s knowledge, under New Zealand law, there is no copyright in this item in New Zealand.
You can copy this item, share it, and post it on a blog or website. It can be modified, remixed and built upon. It can be used commercially. If reproducing this item, it is helpful to include the source.
For further information please refer to the Copyright guide.