The Land Locators Who Left Town on a Fraudulent Fortune

Telegrams and memoranda found among the abandoned office effects of 'Weaver & Co., land locators,' indicate that this little party of swindlers is on its way to Chicago, but there are no indications that the police or anyone else will make any efforts to arrest them. Nobody appears to have any well-defined opinion as to what ground they could be arrested on. Their victims all signed a contract by which, if they carried it out, they would be guilty of perjury and of perpetrating fraud upon the government, so that they are hardly in a position to prosecute Weaver and his operators for not carrying out the contract they never intended to fulfill. The only apparent hold the law might possibly have upon Weaver appears to be in his escaping with a diamond scarf pin belonging to his landlady’s husband, and which he borrowed, though it is not known who has it now, for two or three of Weaver’s operators wore it at different times. Quite a number of sad-eyed victims called at 616 Montgomery Street today, but they gained no consolation from Weaver. They would never recover a cent of money. When they secured their room they borrowed a big desk from their landlord’s agent, saying that a desk of inlaid work was on its way from Weaver & Co.’s warehouse. Between the 'Michigan and Maine Lumber and Milling Company' and their victims, they were swindled both by themselves and in the name of Morgan Thomas, a wealthy lumberman of the Northwest, whose name was forged to these documents.