New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-11-25
THE GOULD CASE.

THE GOULD CASE.
If it was the hope of those who instigatc d
the recent arrest of Mr.. Jay Could to ruin by
that means tho extraordinary operation IN
stocks which, under his management, has
convulsed the Exchange, their desire has been
signally frustrated. The arrest only served to
develop the fact that Mr.. Gould has powerful
hackers; the corner, up to Saturday night,
! had not been broken; and the process OF
"squeezingn the unfortunate spectators who
| found themselves in Mr.. GOulds way went on
without interruption while the ex-President
of Erie was arranging his little matter of a
million dollars BAIL and continued active at
the close of our latest reports. What the re-
suit of this enormous transaction in North
Western shares will be- it is not our purpose
to conjecture. Thus far the leader of the
movement has succeeded in emptying the
rockets of his quOndam partner and the most
intimate of his former allies. But is this to
be the end Call no man happy, said the phi
losopher, till after he is dead. DO not con-
graduate Jay Gould until you know the end
of the Watson suit. 1t has been an open
secret for some time that the new managers
of Erie meant to exact q strict account of
directory, and that for Mr. Jay Gould in par
ticular there was a large rod in pickle which
might any day be brought into use. 1t APP
pears now that long correspondence has been
carried on between Mr.. Thomas G. Sherman,
of the firm of Field g. Sherman, and Mr.. S.
L. NJ. Barlow, the present counsel OF the Eric
Railway Company, respecting the prOp1iety of
Mr.. Shearman's appearing as counsel for the de-
tense in the actions which the company purposed
prosecuting against its former President. That
the complaint and arrest should have come 80
opportunity on Friday to make chapter in
the history of an immense safeguarding
operation may have been designed, or may
have been accidental. But it is certain that
the prosecution would have been instituted
very soon, even without the instigation of
squeezed spectators, and we have no doubt
that it will be pressed in earnest
Mr.. Gould made his first notable appearance
in Erie as the ally of Com. Vanderbilt at the
time of the great Drew corner Of 1868 but it
was not long before he attached himself to
those more congenial spirits, Smith and Fisk,
and became what he has remained until very
recently, the Commodore's bitter foe. Many
of the most scandalOus transactions of the
Fisk and Gould directory were among the in
cidents of the Vanderbilt warfare. If any
thing could be depended upon in Wall-st. or
the Erie Railway offices, it seemed to be the
hostility between Vanderbilt and Gould. That
WAS an enmity which had survived numberless
changes and combinations, had cost, as men
supposed, millions now to one side, now to
the other, and was founded upon circumstances
which neither was likely to forget. With
Smith, on the other hand, GOuld's connection
was of a peculiarly intimate nature. They had
been partners in the most outrageous proceed
ings Of the Erie Ring. They had helped each
other in the seizure of the foreign stock. They
had grown rich and disreputable together.
Yet here we suddenly find Gould cOnspiring
with Vanderbilt to ruin Smith, and Smith
giving up to President Watson the evidence
which is to convict the firm of Smith & Gould
of swindling the Erie Railway Company out of
nearly ten millions of dollars.
1t would be rash to predict that the collapse
of the Smith and Gould partnership is to be
followed at once by the final ruin of those ex
traOrdinary fortunes which the two most
famous financial adventures of our time built
upon the Erie corner of 1868; yet it is evident
that the Gould party is not now the power
which it was q year ago. James Fisk, jr.,
and Jay Gould were the compliments of each
other The dark, artful, reticent, lOng-headed,
scheming President needed the daredevil
effrontery of his more brilliant comrade. The
plans of the two partners required for their
execution combination of qualities rarely
found in single individual. Fisk would not
have been expelled so easily from the Twenty
third-st. stronghold, and with his aid Gould
might have long succeeded in battling inquiry
into his accounts with the company, and re-
sisting attempts to put the stockholders into
possession of their property. We eco no
capacity now in the expelled directory for
resisting an investigation. There are1no COM
pacts, we are told, with the new board
which can impede the exaction from Mr..
Gould of every penny which 1t may be shown
that he owes the road If 1T prove that the
great stock-jObbing scheme in which he now
appears to be triumphant is the means of
Completing tho case which the Erie Railway
Company has been so long preparing against
him, we shall have in his downfall n lesson
Of the dangers Of roguery and the folly Of
Wall-st friendships as striking as tho ter
rible warning already held out to flash Young