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Electric Sugar

Electric Sugar image
Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
January
Year
1889
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

It is a curious fact that in these moilorn days of t-keptieism and of tielief in "rold facis" only there shuld be a creilulity among aharp business men and expTÍenoed investois, in regard lo gnythmg that pretends to stand on a pcienttfit: basis and to have "millions in it," that surpasses the crednliiy of ancient times in the Orarle of Ielphi. It seems that all a ('lever swindler has to do in order to liefool the public is to announce himself as the diseoverer or depositarv of a scientifio secret which will nmke those wbo invest in its application wealihy, to put on plenty of stvle, and to keep lip a confident air of succes. The most recent instance of this sort of thing is the electric-sugar swindle, which was finally unearihed oiily yesterday, and wliich has taken thousands upon thousands of dollars frxni some of the uwually most sagaci"iis men of business of this country 'tnd England. A man who called hiniself "Professor" Henry C. Freund, alleged that he had discovered a process of refinitig sug.ir bv electricity at a cost of about 80 cents, iristead of about $12 per ton. He gave "exhibitions" of his process by sliowing his spectators raw sugar, then excluding thein from the room where his machine was said to be working, and finally readmitting them and showing them eoroe sugar, beautifully refined, which he averred was the same as the raw fugar they had already seen. Some of the cooler heads, like Mr. Havemeyer, thought that investing money in such a process, abnut whi'h they knew nothing, was "huying a pig in a poke," and relused to put any capital into it; but there is a glamour about electricity which turns heads ens[ly ; it has done so many wonderful things that really there seems to be no reasin to suppose it may not do anything whatever; and so a number of gentlemen, growing enthusiastic over :he new invention, formed a company, ave "Professor" Freund a majority of its frtock, put up a lame amount of money for "plant," and started the savant at work. Freund died last spring, but lis widow said he had left her the se■ret, and tilines went righton as before. The shares of the company were selling at 400 per cent. of their face value, and everything was prosperous. Sudd. my the bottom dropped out; shares went down to 10 per cent; the conspirators led, and now the only assets of the company are a worthless "plant" and lerhaps a few hags of sugar. The moral of this incident is too plain o need pointing. Beware of "scientifie" frauds, especiatly eléctrica! frauds

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Register