Show SCRAPS FROM HISTORY gathered from everywhere the arizona diamond swindle the arizona diamond swindle is a classic of fraud in 1871 two men named arnold and slick slack miners and prospectors came to lo a mine broker in san francisco with a handful of crystals which they said they had found on an anthill ant hill in the wildest and most remote part pait of arazona Ars zona they frankly admitted that they did not know whet herthe stones were of any value and asked him to send them to new york to be tested in due time report came that there were in the collection valueless quartz crystals garnets of little worth and seven diamonds one particularly fine the prospectors prospector s pretended 1 to be destitute and the man to whom ley first applied fitted them out and directed thorn them to bring amna in a large quantity of gems to prove the genuineness of their ird three months later arnold and slack were back again famine stricken ragged and exhausted they said that they had been ambushed by apaches caught in mountain freh nets and lost in the desert but they had scraped up about a pint of stones from around the anthill ant hill and these they produced A test proved that many of the stones MOM were diamonds and rid rubles several capitalists were taken into the secret A famous firm of jewelers in new york was approached and after an examination of th the diamonds already gathered agreed to in pay a quarter of a million dollars for a fourth interest in the mine if an expert of its own selection reported favorably after surveying the field up to this time the prospectors had told nobody the exact location of their find As soon as the jewelers proposition was made slack and arnold fell into a violent quarrel as to the advisability of accepting it the rich men who had become interested tried to reconcile the two but slack pointed out that there was no american law by which the diamond mines could be located and held and that to reveal the location before such a law was secured would enable the new york men to grab the i fielland fiel field dand and then refuse to pay slack even professed as aa to the of any considerable diamond beating bearing track and finally declared he was tired of the whole business and wanted to get out of 0 it tile the outcome of the quarrel was the payment of oa one hundred thousand dollars dollar to slack for foe his share in the mines once rid of slack the promoters got down to business even to consi considering the advisability of limiting their output for fear of overstocking over stocking the diamond market the point made by slack impressed them and they went to congress and scouted the passage of a bill by which their diamond claims could be located they were diplomatic about it in fact the whole proceedings ce edings were kept beautifully secret the very congressmen who voted for an apparently innocent amendment to the mining laws did not know that they were providing for a diamond monopoly I 1 this all made delav before the th e bill was passed slack had ample time lime 0 o go to london invest the hundred thousand dollars in tough diamondi oais and diamond dust and plant a section of arizona with his purchase the ahejew edlers lers expert reached the held field he was a careful man the lie mere presence of clamons diat did not satisfy him he gathered up a of the soil and placed it und under erthe the microscope for the alual scientific test there he saw the glittering points with micro ro copic dr amonds under his eye he no longer doubted the remaining steps were easy the diamond Dia moril company was promptly incorporated po rated it had behind it some of the richest men in Califor till and new york the shrewd capitalists bought out arnold the second ot the original oti ginal locators locator sp for five hundred thousand dollars dollar on receipt of the money arnold laded faded from sight and neither he not nor his hia partner was ever seen by any of the men they defrauded scrap booke |