"About five miles," he answered.

"In that case," said I, "it seems to me you don't need to sell a
hundred thousand dollars' worth of stock to build a stamp-mill.
You need only enough to buy yourself a good, strong wheelbarrow.
In two or three months you can thus build your own stamp-mill and
pay for it with ore, and still have your mine all in your own
hands."

He could not see it that way, and, pursuing his own method, he
took $72,000 in two weeks out of the city of Chicago, from some
of the best business men of that city. Now, perhaps he had a real
mine. I have no right to doubt that he had; but the point of
interest to the small investor is this: NEITHER HAVE I ANY RIGHT
TO BELIEVE THAT HE HAD. The thing for me to do, had I wished to
invest in this way, would have been to send an expert to see the
property personally.


ENTER THE FINANCIAL AGENT

In this game of plucking the dollars of the poor and the
ignorant, there has been a gradual improvement in methods. The
constant aim has been, first, to increase the amount of the
harvest; second, to reduce to a minimum the risk the reapers run
of detection and punishment by the authorities. Experience in
most lines of commercial activity has shown that the middlemen
often gather in the largest profits and have the smallest losses.
Many of those working the mining game--and by this is meant