Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-12-29
The Banker of Antwerp aud his Mysterious
Good Fortune.


In 1914 there lived at Antwerp banker
who had passion for speculation but who
invariably was unsuccessful. This ill-luck
became proveTbial; his affairs fell into con-
fusion, and all Antwerp looked to see him
become bankrupt and retire from the pre-
cincts of the Exchange, when, suddenly, his
luck changed and he gained in every opera
ton he undertook as invariably as he had
formerly lost. No matter how suddenly or
how violently the funds went up or down in
Paris, London, Vienna, or elsewhere, the
Antwerp banker was always a gamer by
every movement of the money-market no
matter how capricious. In the course of
two years he realized large fortune, quilted
Antwerp with his wife and family, and es-
tablished himself for the rest of his life in
charming country seat, where he abandoned
himself 10 the delights of rural existence and
the cultivation of flowers, which latter
branch of horticulture he pursued with an
abiding enthusiasm worthy of Dutchman.
The electric telegraph was unknown at
the period in question, and the clumsy sig-
mails by which statesmen contrived to COM
municate with one another were only worked
by the heads of the State and for their own
behoof; and Antwerp puzzled its brains for
some time in vain efforts to ascertain by
what mysterious art the ex-banker had man.
aged to turn the tide, and to win over to his
interests the favors of the blind goddess who
had hitherto been so decidedly against him.
In these speculations upon the changed fate
of the speculator, Antwerp simply lost its
trouble; nor was it until several years after
ward that the seeming mystery was ex-
planned.
1t had been noticed in Antwerp as a sim
gular fact that two drivers of stage-coaches
belonging to that city had made, during the
lucky period of the bankers career, fortunes
which, in proportion to their means, were as
considerable as thatamassed by the speculstor.
But no one thought of attributing the i'm
proved position of the two coachmen to the
operations of the fortunate speculator. Yetall
three owed their good luck to the same
simple expedient. ...
If any of the townspeople had bethOught
them of watching the doings of the banker,
they would have seen that every evening
about nine o'clock the latter betook himself
to little lonely cottage Of his standing in
the midst of garden, few miles from the
town. There, in silence and secrte5, the
Nhker received the visit of one or other of
the two eoaehmen, to whom, after the ex-
change of few words, he handed a basket,
carefully covered over with bit of tarpau-
lin, and which was at once deposited by the
coaehman at the bottom of a great hamper
of poultry, collected by him from the neigh
boring farms, and TO be sold by him at the
towns through which he drove his coach. As
ure, the banker locked the cottage door, and
went up stairs TO a room fitted up as a
pigeon-hOuse, of whose existence no one
else was aware, in which a number Of pigeons
soon began to make their appearance, with
tagging wings impatient to drop into their
nest. The banker having stroked and petted
the weary birds and gave them corn, gently
lifted their wings and detached the little
billet conveyed 10 him by each unconscious
messenger. These birds brought to the
speculator news of the exchange on all the
principal markets of Europe. Sent off daily
from London, Paris, Vienna, Brussels, &C.,
about four in the afternoon, the home loving
little Mercuries never failed to reach their
nests about midnight. After receiving the
intelligence thus sent TO him by trusty con-
federates in each capital, the banker locked
the door Of the cottage and returned TO his
own dwelling, ready to operate next day on
the Antwerp Exchange with certain success.
The carrier-pigeon is now superseded by
electricity; but the Belgians have not re-
nouueed their old partiality for this bird,
and "pigeon-races still give rise among
them 10 numerous gatherings and heavy
bets. On these occasions the pigeons are
carried in a basket to a certain distance, and
are then waited for at given spot by theiI
owners, the bird which arrives first winning
the prize, exactly as in the case of horse
races Recently at one of these pigeon
races held at Malines a feathered courser
let loose at six A. NJ, at Tonnerre, in the de-
partment of the Youne, France, reached
Malines at twenty-six minutes past eleven
Not quite so quick as light or sound, bu
very much quicker than steam could hav
made the journey.