BOTTLED SUNSHINE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3003, 4 October 1911, Page 85

BOTTLED SUNSHINE.

AMERICAN PUBLIC CLEVERLY SWINDLED. Two "get-rich-quick" 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. The men are alleged to have secured £200,000 from the public. - _ -■ ~. ■■■ They demonstrated with great plausibility 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 the country on what is considered to be one of the most ingenious fleecing operations ever attempted. • According to the charge made, the men formed .the Sun Electric Generator Company, ..and. sold shares for whatever they could 'get, the price varying from £1 to £2. : , Thousands of people were inveigled into* the trap, and so-called "plants" were erected in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Houston. They consisted of. a series of mirrors placed on the roof of connected by wires to jars, which in turn were wired to incandescent lights. —Hew 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 the sun, and that, concentrated by the mirrors, the electric energy, -was conducted along the wires and stored in bottles. Then, to prove their assertion, a switch was turned on, and the 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 uninoticeable. The spectators were greatly impressed by the . 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 the 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 madhuie does 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 dieam which would seem as : Utopian as any magic feat of genie-of Arabian tales." ■—A Rush of Investors.— Thousands of people rushed to the bottled sunshine producers anxious to get into the company ai> its organisation, and then deposit fortunes in their banks when the time came to sell the machine retail. The shares were only sold on condition that the holders must not part with them within two years, which it was believed would keep the 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 bottled sunshine stock informed the Government authorities, and arrests followed. These "get rich-quick" swindles have been inflicted on the American public so frequently in recent years -that they formed the subject of one of the most popular plays seen in New York for many seasons. It was produced last winter, and is still running. It is called "Get-rich-quick Wallingford." y