"ELECTRIC SUGAR."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6484, 1 March 1889, Page 2

"ELECTRIC SUGAR."

The Wily Widow, and Her Secret, Bowled Out. [Fbom otje London Correspondent.] : London, Jan. 11. [The cable not long ago announced that Mrs Friend, the moving spirit in the business of the " electric refining" of sugar, had fled from New York, and had been hunted np in Michigan. The following interesting article by our London correspondent gives the history of the whole affair :— ] DISMAY AND" DISAPPOINTMENT. The sensation of the week in commercial circles has been the collapse, or rather exposure, of the Electric Sugar Company's proceedings. A cleverer fraud has, I imagine, seldom taken in a large number of shrewd business men. , I was in Liverpool on Thursday when the bubble burst, and witnessed a scene of extraordinary excitement on 'Change. Telegrams announcing significant discoveries in the so-called "secret chamber" of the Company's American factory were posted on 'Change early in the day, and forthwith a regular panic set in. Share which opened that morning at £80 apiece fell rapidly to £50, £40, £30, £20 ; and when I looked in towards three in the afternoon, men were rushing about wildly offering parcels at £5 and £6 per share. Not that many Liverpudlians were very hard hit. ProfeßSor Friend, who originally started the enterprise, first exploited his plans in Liverpool, and a great many people there, in consequence, speculated in a few shares; but the thing was never looked upon as aught but a possible "bonanza," The surprise came when Mr E. Roberts, a local shareholder who had been fall of doubts and misgivings, visited the factory and found things in an apparently satisfactory condition. He wrote a letter which drove the shares up to £120. This seemed too good to last to many people, and they sold. One young fellow I know bought a share at £20 and sold at £110. You may imagine how pleased :h«» was with himself. THE HISTORY : THE COMPANY FORMED. But here is thestory of the enterprise as related by a Birmingham shareholder. Ten years ago Prof eesor Friend, of Dew York, arrived in Liverpool, with the view of obtaining financial assistance to develop an invention, for refining, sugar by eleotricity, for which be alleged he had been unableto obtain due conodraatioa in the United States, fie did not explain the prosess fully, but ia said by meanß of certain appliances to have produced samples of white granulated sugar of a novel kind. The professor induced powerfalLiverpool people to become promoters of the Electric Sugar Befitting Company, which was registered in America, and was under no obligation .to publish its accounts. ' In return for providing machinery and working the process sepretly, he received, half, the shares, and was supplied furthermore with the sinews of war. ■ ■ THE OOKPANTT; PBO<JRBSSM. . , No official 'quotations were sanctioned by the Liverpool Stock -Exchange; owing to the Company's' peculiar ' constitution, but in course .of time its transactions became so numerous that unofficial 1 quotations were published; Birmingham people took tiie. matter. up; the. "secret" was Alleged -to have been deposited with a

solicitor; experim i.td Bimnleß o sugar wt-re exhibited, «*tjd slnie»t Yf « _* £30 to £35. DOUBTS DISPELLFD Neverthe'epH there were t empties j . c•» Company did not brgin optrau-na; th re ■were doubts e^en as to 'he exittencH of rhe factory, so a special coinmitoioner. <ne Mr Eobertß, jouraeyed to New Y'»rk. He visited thn factory, a lmw. and imposing structure, once ih« " Atlantic Flnur MilJ." He was conducted to »n upper fl><i>r, where was found a partitoni of dr«-t>ccd pitchpine, "as 6nr>ota And hard and solid as oak." "We were told," the writer Bftid, "that the pitch-pine was a mete shptitbing to a wall of brick lined witb steel plates. We rapped, and it pounded solid, »<? jf so constructed. This vr.is th" professor's strong room, confcsinjcig. the .secret' machinery. It was about IGOft Jong jwd 40;'t broad. Workmen were about, and there was the sound of work going on. Mr Cotterill knocked at the door. A «talwart, steady^ honest-looking American, of the type of Abraham Lincoln, came out, opening the door just as much as was neceaeary to let him out and closing it behind him. This was Mr Howard, step-father to the professor's wife, a trained mechanic, pensioner of the Federal army, missionary preacher before placing his services at the disposal of Mr Friend. He has been the profeßaor'i right-hand man throughout • the • prolonged and tedious bueiaess of getting the machinery made in seclusion in various parts of the States and brought together fitted, under the professor's Buparintendence. * * * He said he was sorry he could not let us into the aecret room at • this stage; if we had. come four or five days ago we could have got in, because then many of the cases were unopened t but now they were opened, and the machinery spread about the floor in pieces* and the professor would not admit the President of the Company himself. ". mkk Solomon's trmplb." How long, Mr Roberts inquired, would ifc: be before the machinery wn& put together and ready to run ? Weil, it would not be long now. They were making rapid progress. It wag a mere process of screwing together. , It was like Solomon's Temple: the stones were prepared beforehand, and when brought to the place were put together without sound of hammer. Every piece of machinery had been to the profesßor's workshop, and pnt together and tested before being brought to the factory. It had been arriving in a long series of packages during twelve months past, and was now all on the premises except one or two pieces so small that tho professor could carry them in his hand when they were wanted. They were getting forward well, amd they would be running before Christmas. The Professor, who was ill at his own house, told the confiding Mr Soberts that the unbelieving shareholders would be as surprised as infidels would to find themselves in heaven, when they learned the success of tiie process. BHABES BISING : A DHMONBTEAWON. Roberts* report sent shares op to £50 and jgft, and though "Professor" Friend died shortly after, and there were more delays, the Company prospered until last September, when a public demonstration of the invention was made. The visitors were shown " coarse, darkbrown, common raw sugar," piled up in bags in the topmost story over the machinery, whence four men handed ifc through a square opening as it was called for by Mr Howard, who was in the refiningroom. They then went below and saw white sugar discharged through Bpouta proceeding from the secret rooms. Thirteen barrels were so produced when some of the appliances for driving the " granulating machinery," which has figured largely in relation to the process, gave way. BUYING THB PATENT. The process had never been patented* the " Professor " holding that it would be worked more profitably as a close secret j but it was at length resolved to buy out Mrs Friend and patent her late spouße'g invention. A patent agent went over to America and the crash then came. THB FRAUD EXPOSED. Suspicions were aroused when the widow and all connected with the factory suddenly went Weet. The President, Treasurer and a number of the shareholders went down to the factory, and invaded the secret rooms. What they discovered astounded them. There were a number of machines used in breaking cube sugar into smaller particles and in granulating coarser grades, and nothing else. There were no mysterious electrical apparatus, no wonderful cylinders, po»s, or pang charged with the purifying electrical current. The investigation that was at once set on foot shows how the Bcheme - had been worked. Not a pound of r*w sugar had been refined in the factory. Quantities of refined' sugar, chiefly cubee, had been .purchased by the operators, and prepared in some Becret spot with a chemical liquid, which eliminated the ordinary impurities found in all sugars. This doctored sugar was then carted to the factory . in bags purporting to contain raw sugar. The chemicals used had crystallised the cubes to a large extent, and when they were broken they had a finer appearance and quality than sugar is usually known to possess. When everything was ready, the crushers in the secret room were set in, motion, and the cubes were broken into smaller particles, according to the grade deaired. When the refined sugar began to come out of the shoots two floors below, ail who saw it marvelled at the genius whuh could turn raw sugar into refined in bo short a time. The scheme was cleverly worked to the very last. The shareholders and offioials of the Company were kept in perfect hopefulness as to the future of the process until the largest possible amount of money could be secured, and then the bubble was allowed to burst, and we are told that there is no euch process as electrical BUgar-refining. ' ' SORBOW AND LOSS. The Treasurer, a member of a wellknown Liverpool shipping firm, ie heartbroken. He induced many of his friends to invest, and they are financially ruined. Some people invested the whole of their savings, and among the duped are medical men, solicitors, and not a few women. The "Electric Sugar Befining Company " was one of the most complete and perfectly successful frauds that ever gulled a set of unsuspecting people. '