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Show H MINING AND FINANCIAL H News received from Provo this week contained H the announcement that Mr. Jesse Knight and his ! intimates had organized a new mining company, the Good Springs, to operate at Good Springs. Nev. It was capitalized with the inevitable mil- B lion shares with the inevitable par valuation of K ten cents a share. In the same issue of the news- K papers, in which the formation of the Good B Springs company appeared was an item to the ef- M feet that Jesse Knight had acquired mineral rights m covering a large quartz blowout just south of f Draper, where he expected to open a gold mine. Hj Later came the report that the new Knight tun- Br nel between Provo and Sprlngville was in 95 K feet and had three or four hundred feet to go to H the contact where there is the first possibility of H ore. These multifarious activities may be gratify. Hj' ing to the citizens of Provo, who look to Jesse K Kniglit to absorb the industries of the world, but K they create a different impression among the thou- B sands of investors who put what were to them m large sums in the earlier Knight flotations. B The question naturally arises, why, if the B Knights have the cash to launch new enterprises Bj in Nevada, they do not take up the treasury stock BL in older prospects now idle, or at least give some B support to the market issues which have been the H' playthings of the bears for the last six months. Bj The time was when the assumption of the control H of a company by Jesse Knight was welcomed as Hi a guarantee that development would be pushed Bj vigorously and that funds would be found for all H" legitimate purposes. It was this reputation that H enabled Mr. Knight to dispose of stock in dozens B of enterprises that in themselves would have of- B fered no attraction to buyers. The obligation was B a moral, not a legal one, but in view of the high B moral plane to which Jesse Knight had been as- B signed by his eulogists, no one doubted that he i would regard the first obligation as strongly as the B' second. Bf Bt Now the country is dotted with moribund B Knight prospects; every one of them the tomb of Blj sweat-stained savings of the poor. And the B' Knights go on merrily launching fresh ventures to H;t coax other dollars from the pockets of the pub- B lie. Years ago when Jesse Knight entered upon Bt his policy of expansion, attention was called in this department of GOODWIN'S WEEKLY to the Jt finish of other mine operators who, on the strength Bl of noteworthy success in one district, essayed to Bi make fortunes in new fields. The hope was ex- B pressed that the Provo man would be more for- B tunate than his predecessors on this dangerous B path. But has he? Outside of one particular belt B in the TIntic district, where is there a producing H mine in the Knight control? The Knights have BI had enough time and spent enough of other peo- Bf pie's money to test the accuracy of their judgment B! and they have failed to make good. Had they ac- B quired wisdom with experience and concentrated B their activities in the district they understood. m their mistakes would deserve sympathy. Persist- B ence in demonstrated folly, however, produces an- B other feeling. "" B There is a crisis in the career of any mining Bj company when it finds itself without means for B development. If it has explored its ground thor- Ioughly without finding pay ore or convincing indications indi-cations of it, the time has come to draw the curtain, cur-tain, credit the money spent to experience and , forget it. If, however, the mine has produced ore f and there is a reasonable expectation that it will Hjf ' yield profits with further development, the prob- HI lem before the shareholders is a more complicated H one. In such a crisis non-assessable companies Hi sometimes reincorporate as assessable concerns. HI Assessable companies hesitate -between the levy ing of assessments and the increase of the capitalization. capit-alization. Occasionally the difficulty is met by the sale of a part or all of the ground. Instances are to be found where large stockholders voluntarily volun-tarily have advanced the money needed to tide their companies over a rough place in the road. In the last week or two several Utah companies com-panies have had to meet a situation like that described. de-scribed. Recourse has been taken by the Mammoth, Mam-moth, Lower Mammoth, Black Jack and May Day to the assessment plan. The Victoria has chosen the increased capitalization route. The Lower Mammoth officials were divided as to the best " policy. Some believed that it would be better to issue and sell new stock than to assess. This course was defeated chiefly by the argument that the market for treasury stock is in such a condition condi-tion that the plan might fail of its purpose even after the new stock had been authorized. The Victoria people, needing a large sum to modernize modern-ize their workings, plan to issue 500,000 shares of new stock which will more than double the capitalization. As a general thing the permanent investor favors assessments in preference to stock watering, while the speculator leans toward new stock. The depressive effect of an assessment assess-ment on stock prices is transient while the weakening weak-ening effect of watering is permanent and particularly par-ticularly unfavorable to the hope of dividends. With the legal victory over the Cassidy claimants claim-ants the Silver King Coalition has scored in one ' skirmish involving the title to disputed ore bodies. There are still plenty of suits left, however, to occupy the Coalition for some time. The main J litigation, that in which the Silver King Consoli- dated is plaintiff, will not be indued until the Sep tember term of court and after that the presiding judge will have a large mass of testimony to consider con-sider in reaching a decision. Next in order will come the Conkling and Arthur, or Treweek, ..ait and the Uintah Treasure I ill action. Excellent reports come from Ely concerning the Ely Centennial Copper company, whose auspicious aus-picious launching in Salt Lake a few months ago led the talent to predict a successful career for the venture. The tunnel which was undertaken to tap the promising surface deposits far enough down to afford stoping ground, has been carried forward for a thousand feet and has its nose in black limestone. The lime is gashed at intervals with seams of iron and copper which prove the ore-bearing character of the formation. There is no way of telling how long the local market will continue to back and fill dragging for a few days as if it were keeping alive merely to beat the undertaker out of his honest dues, then sprucing up with an unexpected stir that fools the talent into the belief that the long spell of waiting is over. Business conditions, the barometer of really effective changes in the market, mar-ket, have not entered upon any new phase and until they do, there is no logical reason why the mining stock market should present radical innovations. inno-vations. The following excerpt from the Mining Financial Finan-cial News of New York, contains a timely story of the acquiring of Nevada Hills by the crowd which has just turned over its stock to the Wing-field-Carstairs coterie. It happened some five or six years ago, but is fresh in the memory of many who were interested in the new camp of Pair-view Pair-view at that time. In part the story is as follows: The preponderating position of Nevada Hills during the past few days recalls a chapter on the local curb and western exchanges in the early history of this great Nevada bonanza when the title to the property changed hands with meteoric J rapidity. As a frontispiece to the story there is 1 silhouetted the luminous figure of Hon. Ben B. " Luce, one time Democratic orator and later pur veyor of mining certificates. Mr. Luce, under the financial pilotage of the x late D. H. Peery, pioneered his way into Nevada shortly before Goldfield became the most spectacular spec-tacular camp upon this hemisphere. Vague rumors reached this genial exponent of forensic talent of a gold strike of stupendous proportions at Fairview. Mr. Luce promptly chartered char-tered an automobile at vast expense and disappeared disap-peared from the environs of Goldfield amid the plaudits of his admiring comrades. |