As for the speculator, I believe he subsequently died in Nevada. As John Phœnix would say, “He was one day addressing a large audience, and when his speech was concluded, he dropped from the end of the wagon where he was standing, and the rope which fastened him to the tree being too short, he fell, and broke his neck.” At any rate, I saw his name one day in a paragraph from a territorial newspaper, which read about as follows:—
A NECK-TIE SOCIABLE.
“John Smith, equine abductor, was treated to a neck-tie sociable yesterday morning at sunrise, under the largest tree that could be found in the vicinity. The boys got up a nice surprise party for him.”
The day of mining speculation of this sort has not passed away, but the capitalists of New York and other eastern cities have had their eyes opened, and are not so easily taken in as they were of old.
Some of the enterprising speculators have transferred the scene of their operations to Europe, and are making very profitable shafts and tunnels in the money bags of the capitalists of the old world. I know some of them who have gone there with mining claims, which they have represented to be worth millions of dollars, though not really worth ten cents, and they have returned to America with a goodly amount of capital.
I once heard one of these gentlemen tell his experience with a heavy capitalist in London. “The old fellow,” said he, “was very cautious. I had a talk with him two or three times, and finally brought him some magnificent specimens. He looked at them very quietly, and then asked,—
“‘How much of this stuff is there?’
“‘O,’ said I, carelessly, “any quantity of it. There are five or six thousand tons of it in sight—right on the surface of the ground. The vein is ten feet wide. We have a claim five hundred yards long, and we think it is at least two thousand feet deep, and the farther down you go, the richer it gets.’
“The old fellow took the specimens once more, and I saw his eyes glisten. I knew then that I had him. The next day I sold him the mine, and got the money. Once I had got it, you bet I took a train for Paris; and I have not been in London since.”