Californian Land Sharks.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIII, Issue 2565, 13 January 1892, Page 2

Californian Land Sharks.

A San Francisco telegram to the " New | York Sun." November 6", says :—Kenneth Smith, a Scotchman, just arrived here, tells a story of how land sharks m Southern California robbed him and s 'veral of his countrymen of nearly 300,U00d01. Smith lived near Edinburgh, when an agent for a California!! land company came along with a colonisation scheme. He induced thirty-five persons to invest, m orange land, 7000dol. to be paid by each colonist after the committee had come to California to investigate. The colonists selected four of their number, including a prominent banker, to visit California and report. When the Scotchmen arrived m Los Angeles a man representing a syndicace took them to Riverside and showed them the finest orange groves. The committee was wined and dined, and went back to Scotland with the most favourable reports. The colonists then paid 265,000d01.,and twenty of them started for the new Eldorado. Arrived here they found that Scoville, the president of the land syndicate, had gone to Mexico, and that the promised orange land was nothing bub a barren waste m Antelope Valley. The deluded colonists found the property of no value. Some returned, and others are eking out a miserable existence,"