The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TiIUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 28, 1869.

JAMES FISK (Jun.) v. THE "SPRINGFIELD

REPUBLICAN."

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

The libel case of Mr James Fisk, jun., against
the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican excites in-
terest in the United States, as it involves the press
in the story of the struggle of the speculators in
Wall-street. Indeed, the facts transpiring would
quickly fill more than a three-volume sensational ro-
mance, and we recommend them to Miss Braddon
and other writers of that class. How many of the
lame ducks" committed suicide they might ascer-
tai❑ on inquiry in the United States, as well as the
number that turned burglars or adopted other des-
perate measures to retrieve their ruined fortunes.
The struggle itself was a grand episode in Wall-
stre?,t, actually shaking the whole commercial fabric
of the United States, and bringing forward men
hitherto obscure into the light of a great publicity.
The most prominent of these was Mr. Fisk,
whose biography was given by the Republican,
Nov. 22. As a public man we may be permitted to
reproduce this record excluding that portion to
which he objects, and as it relates to a member of his
family, and not to himself, it ought perhaps never
to have been written. But our main reason is that
on this publication is grounded the action for libel.
" THE NEW HERO OF WALL-STREET.

"It is time the biographers began to deal with Mr.
James Fisk, jun., the new ‘Vall-street hero. His
connection with the Erie Railroad's history for a
year has made him notorious through the country,
has placed him, in fact, in a niche above Robert
Schuyler, Daniel Drew, Cornelius Vanderbilt, pos-
sibly Morton Peto. He has improved on all their
inventions in stock gambling, and, by hold and
reckless daring in manipulating the affairs of a
gigantic corporation and the finances of Wall-
street, entitled himself to a place in the gallery
of noted lives. The appellation of " fat fair
and forty," so often given to well-preserved
women, belongs peculiarly to him ; he is almost
as broad as he is high, and so round that he rolls
rather than walks. But his nervous energy is sti-
mulated rather than deadened by his fat, which
gives a momentum to his mental movement and his
personal influence. Yankee of course, and Ver-
mont at that, and a peddler to hoot—do we not
thus tell the whole secret of his life and character ?
Brattleboro' was his home, and his father, James
Fisk, sen., a hale, hearty, successful peddlar of dry
goods among the country towns of Vermont and
.New Hampshire. The son joined his energy to the
business, which grew into an amount and obtained
a character unprecedented in the history of peddling.
They devoted themselves to choice dry goods for
the ladies -silks, velve•s, ribbons, poplins, &c. ;
drove elegant four horse teams ; made their regular
rounds through 'Western Massachusetts, Vermont,
New Hampshire, and Eastern New York, esta-
blished a settled first-class trade, and furnished
their customers, the best ladies of all the country
towns, with a higher quality of goods and at fairer
prices than they could get without going to New
York or Boston. There was a great titillation
among the village belles and mesdames when the
Fisks came to town with their elegant turnout and
their magnificent goods. Their sales were measured
by the hundred thousand yearly, and they were
larger customers of the city jobbers than a dozen
ordinary country merchants. Such quality could
not long be confined to selling silks by the yard,
and young Fisk's acquaintance with the houses he
bought goods of in Boston some five or six years
ago took him to that city as a member of the firm
of Jordan, Marsh, and Co. To their operations he
at once gave new breath ; it soon became the first
wholesale and retail house in Boston ; controlling
the markets ; running mills—making money. But
this did not long satisfy ; ambition and audacity
grew by what they fed on ; and Mr. Fisk left the
Boston firm with a $200,000 fortune, and en-
tered upon cotton and other speculations in the
South and in New York. Losing and winning, two
or more years da ifted away, when we find him
in the beginning of the career now culminating.
With other Bostonians, .John S. Eldredge, Josiah
Bardwell, and General Whitney among others, he
surprised New York on a fine morning of 1867 by
capturing the Erie Railroad. Two objects were in
view, a grand stock speculation, and a loan of its
credit to the Hartford and Erie Railroad, in which
Eldredge and other Bostonians were greatly inte-
rested—these accomplished, after the fight with
Vanderbilt, most of the Boston party went out,
though Eldredge is supposed to have had large in-
terests with Fisk in his recent operations. But
Fisk remained, and with Mr. Drew, the old Erie
manager, has been making a series of grand " cor-
ners" in Erie stock and in the money market dur-
ing the past season. Their audacious schemes
and operations have been at the bottom of most
of the Wall-street disturbances for nearly a year.
Drew and Fisk have now quarrelled ; the young
worldling has learned all the tricks of the old
Methodist, and invented some new ones, and no
longer needs either his counsel or his credit.
The principal means for their speculations have
been the issue of new stock of the Erie Railroad,
and locking up currency ; English capitalists
have been in league with them in one or both
of these performances ; and twice, thrice, half a
dozen times, perhaps, they have thus controlled
and swept the market,• ruining all who were bold
enough or weak enough to stand in their way,
and putting fabulous profits into their own pockets.
[But Fisk has probably destroyed the credit of the
railroad, while piling up a fortune for himself. The
multiplication of its stock has been fearful ; from
30 millions of nominal capital a year ago, it has
now been raised to 60 or 70 millions ; and what
there is to show for the difference, beyond some
worthless securities of the Hartford and Erie Road,
and a million or two of real estate, it is now impos-
sible to say. The issue of new shares seems to
have been wanton, and with no purpose, in great
part, but to gamble in Wall-street with. Nothing
so audaciou4, nothing more gigantic in the way of
real swindling has ever been perpetrated in this
country; and yet it may be that Mr. Fisk and his
associates have done nothing that they cannot
legally justify, at least in the New York
courts, several of which they seem wholly to
own. Fisk's operations are said to be under the
legal guidance of both David Dudley Field and
Charles O'Connor, and now both Judge Barnard
of the State, and Judge Blatcllford of the United
States Court, back up and help on his proceedings.]
Mr. Fi-1 married a handsome Springfield girl, Miss
Lucy D. Moore, 12 or 15 years ago, and has a fine
residence in Franklin-square, Boston. But he also
owns houses and a theatre in New York, and deals
with life everywhere on a magnificent scale. What
will become of him and his operations remains to be
seen. The Erie Railroad complication must appa-
rently have an early issue. As an instrument of
travel and commerce it cannot for ever remain the
foot-ball of gamblers, the prey of speculators. The
value of its shares is probably gone • but its rails,
certainly its bed, must be of value and of use.
Its hero of the hour stands in a precarious position ;
he has great capacity, now great wealth, certainly
great notoriety ; all these he can make most useful
to himself and to his country ; it is a pity they should
he wasted in destruction, alike of character and of
values, when the country needs them all, and will re-
war I them all so generously in measures of construc-
tion."

The animus between the Republican and Mr. Fisk
was increased by the episode which followed the
late visit of Mr. Bowles, the editor, to New York,
which must b 3 too fresh in the recollection of our
readers to be reproduced here. The Republican,
however, says that Mr. Ben. F. Butler, who is irate
with the paper for its opposition to his re-election
to Congress, had been retained as counsel against
it. It alleges that Judge M'Cunn held a special
evening session to accommodate the conspiracy
that Sheriff O'Brien and Mr. Fisk were.in attend-
ance at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to see the arrest
made; that Mr. George Butler, a nephew of Gen.
B. F. Butler, engaged to decoy Mr. Bowles into a
convenient place for sudden andsecret arrest. It adds
that Geo. Butler is connected with the Spirit of the
Times, and it certainly is true that the Spirit is a
rare exception among the press in the view it takes.
Mr. Fisk has written to the Boston Gazette to give
his version, and his letter is fair. Ile picks to
pieces the biography we have given above, which he
terms " a bitter, abusive, untruthful, and unpro-
voked attack on my origin, vocation, habits, perso-
nal appearance, and family afflictions. As for the
sympathy of the sycophantic horde of office seekers
and small beer editors, who clamoured around the
gaol gates for their comrade's release, their abuse I
expected and am indifferent to. Mr. Bowes pro-
posed the game himself, and I bowled him over the
first innings. I think it will be generally conceded
that I have as much right to defend my personal
charactir as any newspaper has to attack it." Mr.
Fisk never loses an opportunity of making a pun or
playing upon words. He replied to the charge of
" stealing" by stating that the only stealing on the
Erie was the steel rails be bad laid down. The
attack on him was unfairly personal, and we will
watch with interest the further development of this
quarrel.

7HE CHARI7IES OF LONDON.

That families starve in London is as certain as
that families feast iu London, and when a case of
peculiar horror gets into the papers, and goes the
rounds, her Majesty's subjects ask, "How can
such things be? I, even I, poor as I am, would
have done something to relieve this distress had I
been aware of its existence." We may be sure that,
had the starving family known to whom to apply
for relief, that there they would have applied, so it
is from ignorance, both on the side of the want and
on the side of the plenty that a result so shocking
eventuates. An interesting book on the charitable
agencies and wants of London, by Charles B. P.
Bosanquet, was lately published by Messrs. Hatchard
and Co., 187, Flee Willy, wherein a chapter is de-
voted to suggestions to laymen. He notices how won-
derfullylittle the poorsometimes know of the arrange-
ments made for their relief. "It is no smallpleasurc,"
he says, "to put some poor fellow who is suffering
tortures from a broken tooth into communication
with the Dental Hospital, Soho-square, where you
know he will get as good assistance as you can get
yourself. There is a society, 32, Sackville-street,
for the relief of distressed widows, the object being
to assist any of those of good character who apply
within a month of their husbands' death with sums
of from £1 to £2, termed the Widow's Gift, to enable
them to make a fresh start." How to get into a
dispensary or some neighbouring hospital ; where
to go for advice or for the aid expressly provided
for such cases, is information often of vital import-
ance to those the charity was instituted to benefit.
While the poor then are frequently ignorant on
these points, those who have money to give and a
wish so to give that it may reach the per-
sons they desire to aid, seldom know the proper
channel. It is, therefore, important that every
means of publicity should be given to the
best channels for relieving the wants of the

extremely poor, and we must say for the Standard
that there is no other paper in England which has
lent itself so generously to this work. If its politica
lead it into rreaching the doctrine of the poor keep-
ing their places, it does at least seek to know where
tho-e places are, and to direct there things of more
material value than the windy sayings of Mr.
Finlen. Mr. Bosanquet says, after enumerating
the great charities of London, " There are still
three societies about which a new comer may espe-
cially wish for information. The Society for the
Suppres6ion of Mendicity (13, Red Lion-square)
was founded in 1818. It furnishes its subscribers
with tickets for persons begging in the streets ; its
officers inquire into the cases of persons presenting
these tickets, and members of the committee take it
in turn to be present at the office part of every
forenoon to hear the result, and to decide what
assistance shall be given. Work is offered in some
cases, and in winter bread and soup are given to
almost every person bringing a ticket. It employs
constables to arrest professional beggars and to pro-
secute them. Any subscriber of two guineas a
year may send them applications from begging-
letter writers to investigate. The Metropolitan
Visiting and Relief Association (21, Regent-street)
was established after a meeting held at London
II ouse during December, 1843. Its object is to distri-
bute the contributions of charitable persons in such
parts of the town as most need them by means of
the clergy and their district visitors, but with the
condition that relief is to be given without regard
to the religious belief of those who are in want. It
distributed nearly £lO,OOO to 150 districts in the
winter of 1866-7, besides a considerable special effort
luring the cholera. The Society for the Relief of Dis-
tress (28, King-street, St. James') was founded during
the winter of 1860. Its distinctive features are
(1) that a committee guarantee the expense of
management, so that all the money entrusted to
them by the public goes directly to the poor; (2) that
the society's almoners, as a general rule, themselves
take the relief, which is
given in the form of orders
on tradesmen to th-3poor; and (3), that it is abso-
lutely
undenominational. Iu 1866-7 this society dis-
tributed more than £7,000 through 120 almoners.
This society will investigate cases of distress in any
part of London for a subscriber.

There is a very interesting little charity estab-
lished by Mi-s Sophie Moody, Glen Fern, Bourne-
mouth, in aid of the children-workers in Bethnal-
green. Not long a4o much interest was excited
by the story of some little infant girl whose
life was used up in lucifer match-box making,
and immediately a flood of charity was
poured on the head of die little sufferer. But there
are thousands, and it is unfair to make selections
where whole classes are in like distress. The Rev.
Isaac Taylor, in describing the scene of this distress,
says, " into a space some 400 yards in length by 200
in breadth between six and seven thousand human
beings are crowded in poverty and squalor. This
portion of Bethnal-green is the bead-quarters of
the Spitalfields silk trade. The silk weavers, by
whom the parish of St. Matthias is mainly populated,
are descendants of those Huguenot exiles who, for
the cause of God and truth, and liberty and life, fled
from the sunny plains of their native France in the
years which succeeded the massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew, The descendants of these emigrants con-
tinue to inhabit the district; many of them still
cherish proud traditions of their ancestry, many of
them,r) e 3 perhapsof only clad in rags, bear
the old thoughtor France—names
of dis-
tinguished generals and statesmen and poets
hisirlA
and historians. The parents frequently find
it quite impossible to send their children to
school, even when they have clothes and shoes
in which to go. The poor little creatures have to
be retained at home to earn a few miserable pence
by means of some of the numerous " children's
trades" which unhappily flourish in Bethnal-green.
Among these trades, the foremost, perhaps, is the
manufacture of lucifer boxes. For this work the
payment is two-pence farthing per gross, or 32
boxes for one halfpenny, out of which sum the little
labourers have to find their own paste. The other
day I took upon my knees a little girl who is employed
in this manner. She told me she was four years
old ; her mother said the child had earned her own
living ever since she was three years of age. This
infant now makes several hundred boxes every day
of her life, and her earnings suffice to pay the rent
of the miserable room which the family inhabits.
The poor little woman, as might be expected, is
grave and sad beyond her years; she has none of a
child's vivacity ; she does not seem to know what
play means ; her whole thoughts are centred in the
eternal round of lucifer-box making, in which her
whole life is passed. She has never been beyond
the dingy street is which she was born ; she
has never so much as seen a tree or a daisy or a
blade of grass. A poor sickly little thing, and yet
a sweet, obedient child—the deadly pallor of her
face proclaiming unmistakeably that she will soon
be mercifully taken away to a better world, where
at last the little weary fingers shall be at rest. This
is only one case out of scores and hundreds. The
mortality among young children is something fright-
ful. It is a common thing for a mother to say that
she has buried six or eight, and reared one or two."
Mr. Taylor, to relieve this distress, has established
an industrial school, wherein the earnings of the
children are aided by contributions from the public.
Two hours a day are devoted to schooling, the work
being limited to four. About sixty infants attend,
and they average 37,000 boxes each week, with
1,000 bundles of fire-wood, the wages distributed
amounting to £3 or £4 a week. They get their meals
at the school, the daily dinner consisting either of
good pea-soup and bread, or of currant dumplings,
at a cost, for each child of five farthings a day.
Their Christmas dinner was roast beef and plum-
pudding, untasted luxuries before to them. Clothes
are given as rewards for good conduct, and bare
toes and ragged frocks are now rather the exception
than the rule. We trust Miss Moody will be emi-
nently successful in her efforts to aid the work of
the Rev. Isaac Taylor, and we gladly give her the
publicity our columns afford, although we know no-
thing of her further than what a little scrap of a
pamphlet tells, and the interest in the movement
taken by a frieud.—Anylo-American Times.

DUNVILLE and Co., Belfast, are the largest
holders of Whisky in the world. Their Old Irish Whisky is re
commended by the medical profession in preference to French
Brandy. Supplied in casks and cases for home use or exporta
tion. Quotations on application to Messrs. Danville and Co.,
Bolfect; cc 4, Beaufort-buildings, Strand, Loudon W.Q.—[Ad
Tertisement.]

FOREIGN NOTES.