AN INGENIOUS TRICK,

Evening Star, Issue 14688, 4 October 1911, Page 2

AN INGENIOUS TRICK,

• Two “ get-rich-qnick ” swindlers have been arrested by the Federal authorities in New York for selling shares to credulous Americans in a company organised to exploit bottled sunshine. Th© men are alleged to have secured £200,000 from the public. They demonstrated with great plansibidty their ability to tap the sun and to store up electric energy taken from the sun’s rays, and employed over a hundred agents throughout th© country on what is.considered to be one of the most ingenious fleecing operations ever attempted. According to tba charge made, the men formed the Sun Electric Generator Company, and sold shares for whatever they could get, ths price varying from £1 to £2 2s. Thousands of people were inveigled into ths trap, and so-called “ plants ” wore erected in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Houston. They consisted of a series of mirrors placed on the roof of a house connected by wires to jars, which in turn were wired to incandescent lights. —How The Trick Was Worked.— Glib agents took innocent investigators to a plant on a sunny day, and explained that by a secret process electricity was extracted from the rays of tho sun, and that, concentrated by the mirrors, the electric energy was conducted along tho wires and stored in bottles. Then, to prove their assertion, a switch was turned on, and tho incandescent lights became illuminated. This was accomplished by means of a secret electric battery connected with a wire running from the jars to the lights in such a manner as to be nnnoticccble. The spectators were greatly impressed by tho demonstration, and were informed that one sunny day was sufficient to give enough energy to light any office building for a week. Circulars by the thousands were distributed among possible investors, reading : “To catch tho sun’s light, bottle it, and have it on tap to be turned on and off at will is the latest feat of American inventive genius. Our new machine doss more, it derives from the sun’s rays a form of energy transformable into heat and power as well as light. Thus becomes true a. dream of ages past, a dream which would seem as Utopian as any magic feat of genie of Arabian talcs.” —A Rush of Investors.—

Thousands of people rushed to the bottled-sunshine producers, anxious to get into tho company at its organisation, apd then deposit fortunes in their banks when the time came to sell the maohino retail. The shares were only sold on condition that the holders must not pari, with them within two years, which it was believed would keep tho purchasers from becoming restless and trying to sell out before all possible stock was disposed of. But one sceptical citizen who was asked to purchase some bottled sunshine stock informed the Government authorities, and arrests followed. These ‘‘ get-rich-quick ” swindles have been inflicted on tho American public so frequently in recent years that they formed the subject of one of the most popular plays seen in Now York for many seasons. It was produced last winter and is still running. It is called ‘ Get-i'ich-quick Wallingford.’