"SAWHIDE COPPERS "YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BUY THIS STOCK AT PRESENT FIGURES! "The company's lands are located near the heart of the copper district, not far from properties now paying from forty to sixty per cent. a year. There is no reason in the world why Sawhide should not do as well if not better. With immense quantities of ore just beneath the surface, when our new smelter is completed Sawhide will undoubtedly prove one of the best dividend payers in the country! As the Buggenheims and other well-known financiers are largely interested in the stock, it is only a question of time before it will be marked up out of sight. The properties have great surface value and are rolling in timber and mineral wealth." This is a fair example of a perfectly safe variety of advertisement that does not commit the author to anything. As long as there is a piece of land somewhere and an actual incorporated company the stock of which, however valueless, is being offered for sale, the mere fact that the writer indulges himself in rosy prophecies does not endanger him so far as the criminal law is concerned. It is only when he foolishly--and usually quite as unconsciously--makes some definite allegation, such as, for instance, that the company "owns six hundred acres of fully developed mining property," or has "a smelter in actual operation on the ground," or "has earned sixty-five per cent. on its capital in the past year," that the financier runs the slightest risk. It may be that a purchaser would find it so difficult to prove the falsity of any of the statements upon which he had relied in purchasing the stock that the vendor would practically be immune, but in these days of muck- raking and of an hysterical public conscience prosecutors sometimes go to the most absurd lengths and spend ridiculous sums of money out of the county treasuries to send promoters to jail. They are apt to have a hard time of it, however. I recall one scheme in which a client of mine was interested, involving the floatation of about a hundred thousand dollars' worth of railroad stock. The circulars, printed by a famous engraver and stationer, were twenty pages in length and contained the minutest description of the company's board of directors, rolling stock, capitalization, bond issues, interests in other railroads, government grants of land, and the like. They were embellished with beautiful photographs of deep cuts, suspension-bridges, snow-sheds, railroad-yards, and round-houses. The promoter did a mail-order business and sold the stock by the bagful to elevator men, trained nurses, policemen, porters, clerks, and servant girls.