"I'll take $5,000," he said, "but only on one condition. I am going to
the Ely and Ray districts to report for English capitalists, and I can
take your property in at the same time. My report is not to be
published and I reserve the right to make a verbal instead of a written
one. If you really want to know what I think of the property, I am
quite willing to give it a careful examination and let you know.
Because of the stock-market campaign you are making, I would not accept
your offer if, did I report favorably, your idea would be to make use
of the report in the market."
The bargain was struck. A few days later Mr. Herzig received $2,500
from the Scheftels company, on account, and a check for traveling
expenses. He left for Ely.
On the Saturday morning when the New York _Sun_ article appeared
containing the excerpts from the _Engineering & Mining Journal's_
onslaught, I wired my brother substantially as follows:
Savage attack in _Engineering & Mining Journal_ on Ely Central. If
your report on property is favorable, I beg you to let us have it
by wire and allow the use of it to counteract.
An hour later I followed it up with another message telling him not to
wire any report. I set forth that because he was my brother, it might
prove of little avail, now that the publication had been made, and
that it might only tend to do him personal damage in the profession
because of the unqualified manner in which the _Engineering & Mining
Journal_ had taken a stand against the property. In reply he wired
Captain W. Murdoch Wiley the short but decisive report already quoted
herein, regarding the geological reasons why Ely Central should have
the ore, which afterward was fully verified by Dr. Walter Harvey Weed
in the message also reproduced in the foregoing. In a letter from Ely
to Captain Wiley confirming the message, the original of which is in
my possession, Mr. Herzig said:
I have formed a very favorable opinion of the property. I feel that
it has the making of a big mine, and under the circumstances I am
willing to stand a little racket for a time.
The same day he wired Captain Wiley to buy for his account 2,500 shares
of Ely Central at the market price, which order was executed through
the Scheftels company.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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