Show JOSEPH VON GBATTA MORE ABOUT THE SPURIOUS AMBASSADOR AM-BASSADOR FROM HAWAII I The Honolulu Gazette Denounce Him as mi Uuijiiuliflctl Fraud His Career on the Islands Ij I j It will be of interest to a good many I Denver people to learn of the prsent whereabouts and position of a certain Joseph Frank Von Gratta who paid a flying visit to this city last November i and created a stir here during his stab sta-b y posing as an envoy extraordinary 1 from President Dole of the provisional government of the Hawaiian Islands to toe national gin eminent it svabinng ton says the Denver Republican Von Gratta who has about six other names had been here only a day or I two when he was placed under arrest on a telegram from the Salt Lake city i chief of police At the time the Hawaiian Ha-waiian ambassador and his wife were guests of the Grand Central hotel and living in high style The Salt Lake telegram shocked the friends they had made in Mayor Van Horns hotel but they were still more scandalized when II j particulars came two days later I The letter containing a detailed account I ac-count of Von Grattas doings at Salt Lake stated that he stayed in the town I two weeks When he arrived Von Gratta told that he had come to America I Amer-ica with secret papers from President I Dole to President Cleveland relative to the trouble with Queen Liliuokalani In San Francisco his room was robbed I rob-bed he said the papers taken and with them a lot of money and 20000 worth I of precious stones On this account he1 I and his wife were forced to tarry in the Mormon city until new papers and a fresh remittance of cash arrived from i Honolulu I This story went down slick with the guileless followers of Brigham Young and the Von Grattas were in clover At the end of two weeks they were about 3000 ahead in cash and collateral collat-eral Then they departed from Denver Den-ver When Captain Donovan of Salt Lake came here to take back Von Gratta Governor Waite refused to grant him a requisition Even the hero of the city hall war swallowed the Hawaii ambassador story For two weeks longer lon-ger the Von Grattas remained snugly in Denver They had no money and it is believed they prospered here as well as in Salt Lake It is said even Mayor Van Horn keeps a momento of the famous Honoluluan a little unpaid bill for board and lodging Where the ambassador went after leaving l Denver is unknown but information infor-mation from Chicago says that he is in jail there at present on a similar charge to that made against him in Salt Lake city From far Honolulu further news of the great Von Gratta has come The Honolulu Gazette unqualifiedly brands Joseph Frank Von Gratta as a fraud and says that he was never an ambassador ambas-sador from anybody to anywhere He spent the month of September in Honolulu Hon-olulu where he traveled under the c aliases of Von Berg Howard and Pot ter leaving there on October 1 It is not known if any of those people peo-ple who were losers by this acquain tance with Von Gratta while he stayed I in Denver will take steps to prosecute i him His harvest here is not thought to have been rich so it is not expected expect-ed that any of them will make a pub lie complaint about what little they contributed to the entertainment of the spig of aristocracy from the Pacific archipelago |