THE GREEN HARP SWINDLE AT AUCKLAND.

Evening Star, Issue 2940, 22 July 1872, Page 2

THE GREEN HARP SWINDLE AT AUCKLAND.

“ Gold-mining in the Province of Auckland is credited with rather an unusual development of unscrupulous tricks, but the biggest swindle that has ever disgraced this goldfield pales its ineffectual fires before the infamous glory of the Green Harp.” These are the opening remarks of the Auckland Eoenui'j in referring to the above subject. There is to-day a panic on ’Change. And well there might at the stupendous villainy that has just been perpetrated. Hogues generally plunder strangers, and the safe st hou.se in a city is said to be that next door to the residence of the burglar. But the Green Harp robbers have robbed their nearest and most intimate friends ; and the poor and the trusting have

been sucked into the vortex of rum. 3ho original shareholders, with the exception of a few dupes left out in the cold, have all sold out at high prices, and the shares from LlO or £l2, have fallen to-day to 17s 6d. Entrance to the mine had been denied to the public, and a few who had been admitted were apparently dazzled by a show specially prepared for their deception, and through them for deluding the public. It would appear that a common purse has been kept by the swindlers, and while one was prominently buying in the others were stealthly selling out, trading in a sytematized way on the gullibility of the public. One of the leading directors recently started with others who were innocent of the proceedings for Coromandel, and ere the boat had sighted Kapanga every share had been in Auckland transferred from bis name, and he appeared at the mine without one share being in his possession. The great crushing was said to have yielded 1,700 ozs, of amalgam, and after eight or ten days additional crushing the result could be stated only as 2 000 ozs. ; and on directors going down from Auckland to see this amalgam, a sight of jt was refused by the manager and men in possession. The people of Auckland appear determined to make an example of the directors of ths Green Harp Company. The public readily subscribed the means required for the conduct of the prosecution of the principle parties to the fraud, whose names are—3Fhomas Howe, Eugene O’Reilly, William Walsh, Thomas Sheehan, James Cummins, and James Gleeson. They have been admitted to bail, each in his own bond for L2OO, and to find two good sureties of LIOO each. The cake of metal, supposed to be retored gold, left at the Bank of Aew Zealand for amalgamation, has been assayed by Mr Rapson, with the following result

The base metals consist of copper, with a trace of iron, and a little lead. The legal manager of the Green Harp Company has sent for the remainder of the metal, which has been deposited at the branch bank at Coromandel, and it is intended to have the whole tested in a similar manner, In connection of the above we may mention that the usual loss from Thames gold during the smelting process is about four per cent.

Base metals ... 61.9 Silver ... 9.4 Gold ... 28.7 100