The mill was bought, and then we were told that money was required for transporting it from San Francisco to Frogtown. About that time I began to see a hole through the ladder, and concluded there was a large-sized cat in that beautiful meal tub. I determined to send no more good money after bad money, and refused to pay any more assessments.
Some of my friends, however, who had gone into the enterprise, determined to stick to it. They paid the money on their share, or as much as was required for the transportation of the mill. When this was done, there was a call for more money to purchase a steam engine. Then the confounded engine had to be transported from San Francisco to Frogtown. More money. Then a mill site had to be purchased. More money. Then the mill site must be prepared for setting up the mill and machinery. More money. Next, the mill must be set up. More money. Next, a wood ranche must be bought; you could not run a mill without fuel. More money. Next, a shaft must be opened. More money. Next, a road must be built from the mine to the mill. More money. Next, chemicals must be bought for extracting the silver from the crushed ore. More money. And so it went on.
One after another my friends dropped out of the enterprise, and if they had not dropped out, I believe that every month would have brought forth some new device for tapping their pockets. Every one of them who stuck to the speculation longer than I did, became as financially dry as the middle of the Desert of Sahara.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said one of them; “I have speculated in this silver mine all summer, and now I must wear nankeen pants and gaiter shoes all winter. A sitting of draw poker with one of those Mississippi fellows, who ‘does not know anything about the game,’ but somehow cleans you out before you leave the table, is nothing compared to speculating in a silver mine.”
I fancy that a great many men could tell a story very much like this. The game was cautiously and carefully played. We were baited with that very gaudy fly which only allowed us to put in a thousand dollars each. We did not see the point at first, but we saw it afterwards.
When a man has invested a small sum of money he is more likely to let the swindler go unprosecuted that if his investment is a large one. Had we invested five, ten, or twenty thousand each in the enterprise, according to our financial condition, we should have devoted time, and trouble, and money to the prosecution of the speculator and his fellow-conspirators; but as our investment was comparatively small, we allowed the matter to drop. And then we were more readily deluded than if a larger sum had been demanded.
Swindling in mining speculations has become an exact science, and to carry on a swindle successfully requires a good knowledge of human nature, and of the expense of lawsuits.
COLLAPSE OF THE REVENUE.
The Revenue silver mine never paid a dollar to anybody, except to the man who sold it. A small quantity of machinery, and a steam engine, of about four dog power, were transported to Frogtown and set up; but they were seized afterwards, and held for a claim of the San Francisco iron merchant.
A shaft was sunk—that is, a hole was dug—about six feet deep, where there was no more prospect of finding silver than in the back yard of a Fourth Ward boarding-house. The deepest and most profitable shaft of the Revenue silver mine was sunk in the pockets of those who bought it.