The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-16 00:00:00

THE ERIE RAI:LIZOAD.

(From the Anglo-Americini Times.)
The Newburgh and New York Railroad was
opened with every ceremony on the 27th August
to the delight of the Newburgh citizens, who are
brought 12 miles nearer to the metropolis ,by the
new line. The road:belongs to the Erie, being con-
structed at a cost of over half-million dollars, and
of the same gauge as the trunk road. It is 121 miles
in length, and passes through wild and picturesque
scenery, though the whole distatce is-61 miles from
Newburgh, on the Hudson, to New York ..City.
Several of the officers and directors of •the 'Erie
Railroad proceeded with Mr: Fisk to Newburgh,
when that gentlenian made a speech, in answer, to
the toast of the Erie" Railroad, Wherein he defended
the Administration in his usual bold way. On
their taking hold of the line, he said, it appeared des-
tined to fail as a great thoroughfare between the
Pennsylvania Central and the New York Central,the
powers on either side. -In" 10-minutes after he got on
the board he discovered a project to lock two corpo7
rations against theErie,and from that moment there
was no peace in the family; he was the bad man of the
play, and Gould helped him out. .Their first dis-
covery was a very dusty treasury, with very little
money in it ; their first move was-a proposal to sell
five millions of dollars in bonds, hut though he
would not vote for that sort of thing, he alone could
and did sell them. From the first sale of $450,000
he got ten millions and a half of dollars and Com-
modore Vanderbilt. Every one of these dollars was
carefully laid out in constructing branch lines, in new
rails, new cars, and new engines. • lie had to get
money, but be did not go and ask his mother. for,
it, but he kept selling bonds. The company hal
paid out in eleven months $11,000,000 beyond the
receipts, every dollar of whiCh had -passed into the-
road, bezause they had. felt this to be their duty.
The comments and the wonders why. Fisk: and Gould did not " bu'st up" little ;hindered their
proceedings, for they knew they were doing' a;
good work for the poor man who has children
to feed.. The railroad 'brings a barrel of flour
from- Chicago 1,000 miles for 80 cents, and freight
for 25 cents the cwt. Though it could not pay divi.
dends on that, it could- break down in)nopolie's,.
carrying freight as cheap, and lasting as long as'
the powers on either side. Legislation, a handy
thing if hard pressed, it would obtain when needed,
and should legislators force their favours on the
company•-it would continue to receive them. - The
present board would be re-elected, even did it not
hold the majority of the stock, and it would con-
tinue to work the road according to its own ideas
of right. Laughingly he alluded to the low price of
Erie Stock, for which he could not account except
by the prejudice- entertained for the names of Fisk
and Gould by ignorant people, but the stock must
rise. If - there were sore heads in Wall-street
on this account they bad his full sympathy.
Whatever the cause, Erie has Lit2ly .been growing
in favour and rising in price. By the mail news*
from -New York, it is stated that the Company, in
furtherance of the agreement with the Michigan
Southern, is to withdraw their boats from the lakes,
giving the business to the railroad. It is also as-
serted that Peter B. Sweeny, a prominent direztori
shortly expected from Europe, was a heavy pur-
chaser of the sterling stock. The rumours were
that the stock is to be registered, preliminary to
the consolidation of the line with other railways in -
the organisation of a through road between New
York and Chicago, when it will be again quoted on
the New York Exchange, from which it was last
winter expelled. Mr. Gould, as receiver of the
railroad, has the legal right to cancel-the over-
issues, and his action is expected to be in this
direction ; but people on both sides of *the 'Atlantic ..
look on every Erie proceeding with the gravest sus-
picion, nor -c.in*we deny the truth of the remarks
in the City Article of the Times of last Thursday. If
severe, they are neither more nor less than true ;
and however -complacently Mr. Fisk may describe
his proceedings at a social gathering of his- friends,
eliciting shouts of laughter, it would be difficult to
estimate accurately the damage the Erie clique has •
done to European investment in the United States;
_but, if estimated, we. believe it would prove start-
•
ling. He has accomplisLel for American railways,
what " wild cat" schemes have for mines ou the
Pacific slope. -Our great conttinporary says :—. •

I"The lesson has now been ineradicably learnt by the
European public that in the State of New York there is
not a shadow of legal protection for investors in any of its
rsecurities, and that if in any given case the holders aro
not plundered of * every dollar it is simply because in that
I •
specific instance the managers or directois happen to.be
persons who have a sense of distinction between- their
own property and the property of others. . . . Hence
it is plain if the European shareholders in the Erie
Railway ever 'receive a dividend; or recover a dollar of
their property, it will come in the shape of a voluntary
act of grace from the parties who hold that property in
unlimited control. Under the circumstance; the rumours
now afloat, however improbable may be their fulfilment,
are therefore, perhaps, the best that could be circulated
Any statement of the prospect of legal justice would de•
salve to be treated merely as a worn-out deception. Per-
haps an assurance of intended amendment on the part of
the Erie people is almost equally worthless, but we know
that if they choose, iu a fit of liberality, to throw some-
thing to tho shareholders, they have the power to do so,
whereas, as far as the law is concerned, we know that that
has absolutely no power whatever. Accordingly, it is
satisfactory to be told that the managers, having effeated
a consolidation of the Atlantic and Great Western, and
also the Lake Shore line, with their own system, and thus
obtained the command of an entire -and first-rate western
route, are about tnput Jorth next month a report which
will develope the- advantages gained, and also the finan-
cial condition of the concern as it will stand at that date,.
and the course to be pursued for the future, one result
being that they will then be restored to an official position
on tho New -York Stock Board."

One of the reports circulated is that the board, de-
signing to lay a third rail from New York to Buf-
falo to enable narrow gauge cars to travel over the
road, intends to create another big debt, the rise in
the stock being a preliminary operation. The Sus-
quehanna Railway war will be fought out in the
courts, and a long examination of the treasurer, Mr.
Phelps, is reported. Whether the Erie will obtain
possession or not remains to be seen, but as yet
little progress has been made in that direction. The
Erie board have moved into their new offices at the
Grand Opera House, corner of Eighth-avenue and
Twenty-third-street, New York. The description
of the fittings, is better calculated to gratify Mr.
Fisk than the shareholders, ."sumptuous, elegant,
tasteful," but voiy- expensive we fear, being more
adapted for the ease and comfort -of the rich direc-
tors, than to realise Mr. Fisk's boast of putting
bread into the mouths of the poor.

TIIE LATE INTERNATIONAL BOAT-RACE.—The
gentlemen of the English and foreign press who sub-
scribed to hire the steamer Sunflower, on the occasion
of the late boat-race between Oxford and Harvard Uni-
versities have, through Messrs. Clement Brothers, • of
Bell's Life, forwarded to the National Life-boat' Institu-.
tion a eon.tribution of £l2 10s. ; being a moiety of the
balance of their subscriptions after paying for the hire of
the steamer.

BUDGET OF MISCELLANEOUS.—Eighty Chinese
wore robbed of their queues by hair thieves on the day of
their arrival recently in San Francisco.—The deepest sea
sounding ever taken showed a depth of 61. miles.—Baron
Liebig states that the land of Hesse has risen 300 per cent.
in value during fifteen years, simply under scientific agri-
culture.-LAlbert Crofoot, a member of the Ddtroit bar, has
been convicted of furnishing a client of his with the keys
which he used with success to make his escape. Tho
prisoner was awaiting his trial for murder.— Chicago has
181 churchas and church missions, the leading denomina-
tions being the Methodist, with 2G churcaes ; Episcopal,
19; Baptist, 18; Catholic, 18; Presbyterian (both schools),
22; and Congregational Trinitarian, 10.—This is what a
military nation com2s to, and the tendency is steadily to
get worse. In the Austrian army there are 175 generals,
271 colonels, 302 lioutanant-colonels, and 1;IG majors in
active service, and 338 g,,nerals, 433 colonels, 431 lieu-
tenant-colonels, and 1,41 U majors on the retired list, draw-

ing pensions.

MARRIAGES.--Commodore Vanderbilt was mar-
ried at London, Canada, on Saturday, Aug. 21, to Miss
Francis Crawford, daughter of Robert L. Crawford, of
Mobile, and afterwards travelled to Saratog by special
train. The Commodore is in his 76th year, !tad the bride
said to be 30, but the bridegroom wears well, looking. un-
der 50. "You never know," once exclaimed his daughter
when teaching his granddaughter to darn her stockings,
"what you may come to in this country ;" and to that, as
the press observes, the grandchild has come. The Com-
modore, however, is a man of millions, some say the
richest in the world, and he surely has entnigh for the
now wife, as well as the children.—Goueral Van Wyck,
of Now York, has recently married Miss Broadhead, of
Milford, 'Pennsylvania.