, 1875-11-07

The United States is supposed to contain
goodly number Of railroad kings" but we
never have had a GEORGE HUDSON or a Dr.
SrRoCsDEna On this side of the Atlantic
The first once practically controlled the whole
railway system Of England He began life
extremely poor, became incredibly rich,
and died in poverty. His career has been
repeated, with IN important variation, by
SrRorsBERo, the fallen railroad-king of Rus
sia, Of Austria, Of Germany. One Empire
was insufficient for his vaulting ambition.
and fell. HuDsoS had this same experience,
but be is believed to have been an honest
man. STRoUsBEnG is not Us gently trented
by ru1nor. His method Of procedure, too,
differed in kind from that Of HUDSON. The
latter was financier first, q contractor after
wards The former reversed this order Of
things While he gan1bled in the stocks and
bonds Of every European railroad, he prefer
red to make his money by bidding for con-
tracts and taking securities, instead of cash,
in payment. In this he resembled THOMAS
BaAssEr, and he may rise to wealth again, as
BRAssEY did after his disastrous foi1nre But
SrRousBERG is at q disadvantage. 4 prison is
poor place from which to retrieve ones for
tunes, and the deposed monarch is in prison.
Ee WAS, We believe, Of Austrian extraction.
For long time he made Vienna his head
quarters. The smooth roads and the sub
stantial stone bridges Of the Austrian railways
are largely due to srRousBERa. He built
not only largely, but we'll When the
era Of internal Improvement dawned
upon Russia, SrRoussEao was ready to
profit by the newborn zeal for rail
ways. His bids were promptly fled. It
is said they were sometimes weighted
with gold, and that he therefore got contracts
without much regard to the price he asked
for his work. Be this as it may, he gotthem.
He laid hundreds of miles of track on Rus
sian soil. While he Was busily engaged there,
Germany fell victim to the railway mania
What more natural than that great con-
tractor, who had successfully served two en-
pires, should now serve third7 An army of
workmen marched across Germany, marking
their way with iron rails. It was SrRous-
BERG here, SrnoUsBERa there, STRousBERa
everywhere. Lesser spectators hung on his
lips and besought him for ''points." The
'sBig Bonanza" is mere admiration of
German play, and the Inter was born of the
speculative era which S1RoUsBERa led.
He went too far. Supposed to be
fabulously rich, he saw his wealth
eyaporate He was loaded down with
stocks and bonds. The bonds could not be
sold. The stocks shrunk in value day by
day One desperate expedient after another
failed. The crash came. Dr.. STRousEERG
was arrested in St. Petersburg. Dr.. STRous-
BERG has been imprisoned at Moscow. DR..
SrRousnERa has been sued by his creditors in
Vienna. He is about to be adjudged bank |
rupt in Berlin The evil he has done is
shown by the rush Of failures in Russia and
the pnnicky state Of the money-market in
Austria and Germany. Our dispatches Of |
yesterday showed that even London was dis |
turbed. Dethroned monarchs, like ex-Presi- |
dents, rarely amount to anything. It is not
probable that we shall hear again Of the King |
whom the railways Of three Empires owned. |
A great many respectable people were dis |
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