A STUPENDOUS FRAUD

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 25.

A STUPENDOUS FRAUD.

ONE word expresses the failure of the Panama Canal, a word not unfamiliar to the residents of this city—fraud. It is the old story, and now investigation is bringing the necessary facts to light. Spikes sold to the company, shipped from this city at $1.00 for each spike, sold and contracted for at triple the price honest men would have done it; two houses for M. De Lesseps and his son Charles, charged at $190,000, which cost $23,000 each; enormous salaries paid to favorites, and, according to report, M. Charles De Lesseps receiving in one day $10,000 as his profits; a house built for a director at a cost of $150,000, charged to a fictitious "master of the port;" whole cargoes of material sold several times over, the same cargo being paid for a dozen times—these are some of the stupendous frauds resulting in the making of colossal fortunes for the members of the ring, who are now enjoying them by living lives of luxury in Paris.

It is small wonder the canal failed; small wonder that M. De Lesseps has gone into retirement. As the facts become known there will be a sensation in Paris, and the parties to the great fraud will undoubtedly be brought to trial. We have had court-house rings, and capitol rings, and ceiling jobs, but what are all these combined to the great ring that has grown rich on the Panama Canal stealings, and stolen the savings of the French people investing in the canal bonds.

The Panama Canal fraud goes down as the greatest fraud in history, and it alone will make the last generation of the nineteenth century memorable.—N. Y. Christian at Work.