LXIV.
DIAMOND AND OTHER SWINDLES.
THE GREAT DIAMOND SWINDLE OF 1872.—HOW IT WAS ORGANIZED.—MAGNIFICENT PLANS OF THE SWINDLERS.—PLANTING A DIAMOND FIELD.—HOW THE FRAUD WAS EXPOSED.—A NEAT SWINDLE ATTEMPTED IN SAPPHIRES.—HOW IT WAS DISCOVERED.—A MYTHICAL COPPER MINE.—FATE OF THE SWINDLER.
The great diamond swindle of California will probably go down in history as one of the most magnificent frauds of this or any other age. There are some facts about the matter which have not yet been given to the public. When the operators first started their “plant,” they went to New York, and endeavored to enlist capitalists in that city. A friend of mine was thrown into contact with them, and from him I learned the points. They wanted half a million dollars for their claim. He looked at the diamonds, which appeared to be genuine, and he was allowed to apply the usual test of rubbing with steel files and with emery. They stood the test, and he offered to put ten thousand dollars into the scheme. Another friend (a friend of my friend) came forward, and as he had some money to spare, he was allowed to investigate the business; the twain were prepared with more files and emery, and they rubbed more of the diamonds.
The test was going on satisfactorily, when my friend, whom I will call Sharpley, happened to lay hold of a stone that yielded to the hard substances against which it was brought. Sharpley tried another side of it, and again it yielded. He was handling a piece of common crystal, and not a diamond, and his eyes were beginning to open. He became inquisitive enough for a son of Paul Pry, and the result of his questioning was, that he didn’t put his money into the speculation. Straightway he sought his friend, and actually found him arranging to draw the check that would have made him a twenty thousand dollar stockholder in the great diamond mine of Arizona.
DISCOVERING A FRAUD.
Sharpley talked to him like a Dutch uncle, and with some difficulty induced him to withhold the money for the present. I say with difficulty, for Sharpley’s friend had become as enthusiastic over the diamonds as a damsel of sixteen over her first beau, and was determined to go in anyhow. He half suspected that Sharpley wanted to keep others out so that he could get more stock for himself, and subsequently, when the stock was all taken, he upbraided Sharpley for keeping him out. He does not upbraid much now, but, on the contrary, quite the reverse. When the exposure came out, he thought how his twenty thousand dollars had been saved, and remembered that Sharpley had been the cause of its salvation. He sent a basket of the best champagne to Sharpley’s office, and it was while drinking a glass of the beverage that its recipient told me of his diamond experience.
“It was one of the best laid plants I ever saw,” said Sharpley, “and if it had not been for stumbling on that piece of crystal, I might have been taken in. They tried to explain to me that the crystal got in there by accident; but as they had previously told me that every stone in the collection had been examined by an expert, I knew there was a lie somewhere. They had a few rubies, which they claimed were found in the same locality, or near them. I looked at them, and was allowed to take one of them to a jeweller, who pronounced it genuine. That night I overhauled my encyclopædia, and studied up the character of diamonds and rubies.
“I found that the diamond consists of crystallized carbon, while the ruby, sapphire, and all that class of gems, are crystallized alumina. Next morning I went to one of the best geologists in New York, whom I happened to know well, and asked him if crystals of carbon and alumina could be found in the same locality.