A R ST O: THE MARQUIS D RAYS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1198, 22 November 1882, Page 2

A R ST O: THE MARQUIS D RAYS.

I The enterprise of the Marquis de j Hay?, who was going to found a yewv ew France in an island off the coast of Australia, which he had purchased for about £70, has come to a very ignominious end. Accounts have appeared j from time to time in our columns as i to the find fate of the emigrants who, i putting faith in brilliant prospects held ; out to them by the M.wj'.iisde Kays — : whose proper named is M. Charles | Briel — started tor ew France, having first subscribed sonic ten million francs I to the company which tin*. Marquis dt; I ays had founded. They were sent in ! vessels purchased with their own money , only to iindon arriuil the island was ' a howling desert instead of a smiling I garden. Those who did not full victims to famine and disease were brought home by some compassionate English vessels, and in the meantime the Mar. qnis de Kays, who had taken caie no* to accompany the colonists himscj'i, was busily engaged in getting up fresh I enterprise in Frauce. The public were i informed that the engineers who haH ■ gone out to .'• ew France had discovered gold, silver, and platinum in the lands ! conceded to the company, that the cultivation of the sugar-cane would he most remunerative, and that money might be invested in these concerns by the public with the assurance of a very handsome profit. A good deal of money seems to have been subscribed, but in consequence of the complaints which were made, the police at Paris made a descent upon the offices of the company and siezed the books, arresting at the same time two of the agents. The Marquis de Rays had made his way to Spain, but the Spanish Government consented to his extradition, and he was brought to Paris, making an attempt to escape at the Bayonne station, being very nearly run over by an approaching train. The self-styled Marquis de ■ays will be upon his trial upon the charges of manslaughter, embezzlement and enrolling a military force in France j without the consent of the Government — this latter charge being based on the fact that he had organised a body of gendarmerie, hundred strong, which was about to start for New France from f-avre, when the naval commander put embargo upon their departure. The unfortunate men then joined the Marquis de Kays at Barcelonia, where he was at the time equipping two fresh vessels for New France, but the Spanish Government had them thrown into prison as suspicious characters, and they eventually had to gain their respective homes as best they could in a state of absolute penury, ihe story thus briefly summarised is a word-for-word abstract of the indictment framed by the public prosecutor in the Paris Tribunal, before which the case will be heard.