The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-26 00:00:00

THE ERIE RAILWAY.

By the New Ycrk papers of Saturday week we
learn that a movement was being organized among
the stockholders of the Erie Railroad to get rid of the
clique. Nominally, it was .said, they had a chance
at the annual election, which was to occur on the fol-
lowing Tuesday, but the present seventeen Directors
were enabled by theErießill to classify themselves,and
hold their posts up to five years as suited their con-
venience. It was expected that Fisk and Gould would
" classify themselves into the five year places." At
that time these directors were as follows : —Jay
Gould, president and treasurer; James Fisk, jun.,
controller ; F. A. Lane, counsel—these three con-
stituting the " exccative committee ;" Alexander S.
Diven, vice-president ; G. M. Diven, William M.
Tweed, Peter B. Sweeney, C. G. Sisson, J. Ganson
of Buffalo, J. Hilton, Homer Rams len, Henry
Thompson, 0. W. Chapman of Binghamton, D. S.
Miller, jun., W. B. Skidmore, George M. Groves,
and one vacancy. General Alexander S. Diven,
vice-president, a hard-working and painstaking
man, highly respected, was constantly out on the
road, and most of the others being men of straw,
Gould, Fisk, and Lane practically rau the road. It
was anticipated that General Diven would be
dropped, Mr. WHenry being substituted, and per-
haps Lane ; but we learn by cable Mr. M‘lienry
was not elected, and that Fisk, Gould, and Lane
did classify themselves for five years, and secured
their election. Nevertheless, there is a storm
brewing, which may perhaps relieve the Erie ; and
it will not be the fault of the New York Times, and
of the press generally, if the clique are able to
weather it. Speaking of General Diven, the Times
says :
"As vice-president, frequently in Naw York, he is almost
compelled to hear and know of matters connected with the
operations of his colleagues of the executive committee,
though not admitted to their secret conclave. He must be
apprised of certain transactions for private account' by
these gentlemen, which knowledge, after the extraordinary
affidavits and hard swearing of last week connected with
the gold explosion, if spread before the stockholders, might
compel the Attorney-General of the State, from a sense of
pubho decency as well as duty, and to avert shame and
scandal from his high office, to oust these men by summary
process from the board of directors for flagrant breach of
trust, and to prosecute them for crimes and misdemeanours
which the term fraud fails adequately to describe."

It goes on then to remark : -
" These men have added thirteen millions to the com-
mon stock of the road since last March. The presumption
is that they required the avails of this vast issue, sold at
the rate of about 30 cents on the dollar, as fast as the
English public could be duped into buying it; and the
cash receipts of the road, and all the credit which it was
possible to obtain on the expenses and repairs of the road,
to keep the corporation and themselves afloat for the inter-
vening six or seven mouths. At all events, the $130,000
shares have been issued and registered. Both of these men
wore financially blown up by the occurrence referred to in
Wall-street. One of them fled the street the same after-
noon ; the other is trying to avert the consequences of
utter ruin by enjoining his own brokers against making
honourable settlements of contracts for his account, and
against returning, or demanding of him to return, moneys
loaned to his firm on gold at 145 to 160 per cent. In
view of these astounding facts we are curious to see
whether the old common stockholders, whose certificates
date back to 1867, or still earlier, before these men took
the road with only $16,500,000 sworn capital, and.
$5,500,000 hypothecated capital; and the preferred stock-
holders, whose dividends, in 1868, were used for Albany
plunder, will quietly suffer the act of classification—only
another name for the confiscation of their property—to be
carried out next Tuesday. They may have submitted to
outrages involving greater pecuniary loss at the time, but
never to so lasting a wrong. It is possible that they may
have known these men fabricate a single certificate for
200,000 new shares of the stook, and agree to sell it to
themselves at GO cents on the dollar, supposing the stock
might be required to save their own re-election, and after
this danger has passed cancel the sale at 60 cents; sub-
sequently divide the 200,000 new shares and 30,000 addi-
tional shares into small certificates for the London and New
York mar! et, and, first selliug the whole for private ac-
count at the best figures the two markets would afford
down to 40 cents on the dollar, take 200,000 shares from
the company at that price. This sounds like a gigantic
fraud of $4,000,000 on the stockbrokers in four or six
weeks. It may have been even more, considering that the
road required no now stock to be sacrificed at GO coats on
the dollar, much less at 40 cents."

On the same subject the Springfield Republican
observes :

" Thera is a disposition to contest the law under which
Fisk and Gould will continue themselves in office for four
years longer, without an election. This may be the be-
ginning of the end with Fisk, for as soon as the luck be-
gins to turn against him ho will be an easy man to beat.
We do not export a sudden fall for him, but even that
would not be strange. What we shall look for is a gra-
dual crumbling away of his power and purposes, and his
ultimate descent to the bottom of the hill up which his
pedlar's cart dragged him a few years since. The public
is getting tired of him and disgusted with him; it has had
enough of Fisk. He will probably manage his Erie elec-
tion as he pleases, but in the present temper of the people
such a victory on his part would cost him more than it is
worth."

There are good grounds to hope that if the Eng-
lish holders now move in conjunction with Wall-
street that this inc Ibus which has ridden their
property almost to death may be removed, and
with it the great scandal, which has done so much
to check investments in the United States.

BUDGET OF PERSONAL—Mrs. J. J. Astor and
her son, W. 'W., sailed in the T'ille de Paris, Oct, 2, for
Havre. Young Astor goes to Rome to pursue his studios
as a sculptor.—Judge Stephen J. Field of the United
States Supremo Court arrived at New York from Europe
by the steamship Main on Saturday, Oct. 2, and went to
the Brevoort House.—Archbishop Meige of Kansas and
Bishop Vierot of Savannah, sailed for Europe, October 2,
to be present at the opening of the CEcumenical Council.
General Sherman is said to have told a member of the
House Committee on Military Affairs that it will not be
desirable to reduce the army so long as the Indians con-
tinue as troublesome as at present.—Senator Carpenter, of
Wisconsin, at an agricultural fair in that State, has been
condemning tho railway and other monopolies which,
"by their grasping, are ruining the country."—Senator
Osborn of Florida and the Rev. A. C. Osborn reached
Now York on the 4th instant, in the steamship City of
Brooklyn, from Europe. Ex-Secretary Stanton has
returned to Washington, after an absence of several
mouths, in a better state of health.—The steamer China,
from San Francisco for Yokohama and Hong Kong, Oct.
4, carried $337,000 in treasure, of which $309,000 is for
Hong Kong; also 850 passengers, of whom 800 were
Chinese, and a largo delegation of missionaries. There
were also on board Mr. Charles Delong, Minister to Japan,
Mr. Sheppard, United States Consul at Yoddo, and seve-
ral Consuls of the United States, of Great Britain, and of
Belgium, in China and Japan.—Count d'Aerschot, Attaché
to the Belgium Legation at New York; Mr. Aldis, United
States Consul at Nice ; and Mr. Rennie, Auditor General
at Hong-Kong, were passengers on board the steamer
Westphalia, from New York, which arrived at Plymouth
last Saturday.—J. Ross Browne now advertises himself as
a land and immigration agent in San Francisco.—General
Marmaduke, ex-Confederate, is becoming an extensive
real estate owner in Cincinnati.—Two marriageable Ger-
man counts have arrived in Now York.—Beauregard is
about to marry.—Mr. Jabez Bacon, the oldest man in
Winthrop, Maine, aged 93 years, appeared recently on the
streets with a horse 25 years old, a waggon 45 years old,
and harness 48 years old.—Generals Thomas and Hancock
and Admiral Farragut are in Chicago.—The New York
papers tell us the "special commissioner" of The London
Times in Ireland is said to be Mr. O'Connor Morris, an
Irish barrister, and an occasional leader writer for the
Times.—George Francis Train has made . a speech in
favour of Pendleton, in the course of which he mentioned
that the Cincinnati Commercial was subsidized by the
British Government to oppose the interests of labouring
men in America. To which the Commercial replies that
" George Francis was a fool before he was imprisoned by
the British, and since that time he has been falling very
rapidly."—Mr. Wm. Cullen Bryant is sitting for a pic-
ture, on which Mr. Hennessy is engaged, to be styled
" The Poet of the Woods."—A charge of murder has
been preferred against Captain Hall, the Arctic ex-
plorer, for killing Patrick Coleman, who, the Cap-
tain declares, mutinied during his recent expedition in
search of Sir John Franklin's party.—The Countess de
Faverney, wife of the French Chargé d'Affaires at Wash-
ington, arrived at Now York by the Lafayette, from Havre,
and wont to the Albemarle hotel.—Vice President Col.
fax was serenaded at Salt Lake city on the 15th of
October ; he had to respond to repeated calls, and ad-
dressed an immense crowd in front of the Townsend
House, in the course of which he gave his views at length
on the subject of polygamy. Ho quoted from a book of a
Mormon, and proved, at least to the satisfaction of his
Gentile auditors, that the whole system was unwise
and illegal, and ought to be abolished. He was fol-
lowed by Governor Bross, of Illinois, who fully indorsed
the aguments of the Vice-President. Such freedom of
speech has never been exercised in Salt Lake City before.
Mr. Colfax and party left for the East on the 6th instant.—
Senator Brownlow has been very ill recently, but is get-
ting better.—Mr. George 11. Pendleton has been her hus-
band's amanuensis during his illness.—Mr. Geo. Peabody
intends to pass the winter in the south of France.—Mose-
by, the ex-guerilla, has again appeared on the surface as
the challenger of the sheriff of his county to fight a duel.—
Mr. llorace Greeley publicly states that he would not ac-
cept the exalted trust of Senator from Virginia, even if the
Legislature elected him, and he desires his friends to
understand this decision to be irrevocable.—Governor
Page has appointed Charles Pomeroy Button, of Burling-
ton, to represent Vermont in the southern commercial
convention at Louisville.—Professor William D. Whitney,
of Yale College, has offered the chair of comparative phi-
lology at Harvard, with a salary double his present one.—
=Mr. B. Farwell, revenue agent, is making a stir
by his efforts to induce the New York Custom-house to
seize the steel exported to the United States from England
on account of undervaluation. This act pleases the manu-
facturers in Pennsylvania very much, but it is somewhat
doubtful whether the seizure will hold good. Iu the cele-
brated champagne wine case of Heidsieck, Mumm and Co.,
Moet and Chandu, &c., seized by the United States Cus-
tom-house for undervaluation, the Goverrment, a corres-
pondent informs us, did not succeed in a single case. It
is as doubtful perhaps whether it will succeed also in
the ribbon seizures front Bale. Mr. Farwell is at present
, iu New York to look after this business.