Fake Mining Schemes that Steal the People's Savings

By EMERSON HOUGH

Author of "The Mississippi Bubble," "54-40 or Fight," etc.


EDITOR'S NOTE.--It is time vigorous efforts were made to stop the
cruel frauds perpetrated on the name of one of the world's
greatest industries. Mining is a legitimate and honorable
enterprise. It contributes immensely to the national wealth. It
has been the source of some of our great fortunes. Because there
is something magical in the suggestion of gold or coal or copper
taken out of the ground, sharpers have made mining an instrument
of successful deception. They have tricked people into investing
their savings in worthless or even non-existent mines. Perhaps
you who read this have bitten at an advertisement in a reputable
publication, which pretended to place the wealth of some western
El Dorado at your feet for a few hundred dollars. Doubtless your
money has disappeared. It is for the purpose of giving you the
protection of a knowledge both of legitimate mining and of the
ways of thieves that this article is published.

AMERICA is the land of the free and the country of opportunity
for all. Incidentally, it is free hunting-ground for sharpers,
and a land of opportunity for the unscrupulous. No such chances
for fraudulent business exist anywhere else in the world.
Americans are the richest people on earth, and the most easily
parted from their money. Those whose sole ambition is to get rich
quick very frequently help some other man to get rich quick.