The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-08-07
Our New York Letter.
The Gould-seeIover Fracas and its ause
The Iniquiiy of stock.GambIiuR.
New YORK, Aug. q. 1877.


largely to enliven the midsummer dullness of
| the week is the encounter between Jay Gould
and one of his victims. To appreciate the ex-
quisite Righteousness of this affair one must
have seen the actors in it. Seelover Is large,
sinewy and athletic. Gould is mere atom Of
man, diminutive in size, shadowy of form
and as feeble looking of body as he is repulsiye
| in aspect. If Seelover really meant business
he must have exercised unwonted self-restraint
to have done so little bodily damage 10 his an
| tagonist The probabilities however are that
he merely sought to put Gould into fright by
| giving him bad shaking over an area way
and then dropping him in.
A street broil Of this kind is of course ex-
tremely discreditable to the parties engaged in
it, but then it must be borne in mind that it
originated in stock gambling. pursuit not
| particularly conducive to the culture of the
moral faculties or social amenities 1t Is Iec-
| ognized as business and does not fall'under
the ban of the criminal law, and yet it is diff
cult to see In what respect ii is more reputable
| or lesssbaneful in its consequences than that
carried on in the secrecy OF night, and under
| occasional terror OF arrest In the gilded dens
where SO many wretched dupes are broken
| upon the wheel of misfortune. Bat the, code
of ethics is regulated to a considerable extent
by fashion in this city. The stock spectators
have that essential point In their favor II
the dealer in faro enters into combinations TO
entrap guls into his net he is looked upon as
dreadfully low; if he juggles with the cards he
is the meanest kind of thief. But the share
operator may lure people by as many false de-
vices as his ingenuity can contrive, he may en-
ter into an agreement to sell, and be all the
| while buying, or to buy and be all the while
selling, and if he gains by the transaction,
even though he may hopelessly ruin the asso-
| oiates who trusted his word, he is called
smart and becomes good deal more OF
| hero than an outcast.
1t Is not to be presumed that the sufferers by
this kind of sharp practice will remain In state
| of placid calmness while they are being engulfed
in destruction. 1t certainly is true that physi-
| cal violence is never resorted to by gentlemen
l who are at all nice in their views of the pro-
| pretes of life. 1t is the resource of bully.
| But the fellows who get fogged are as gener-
| al thing no better. And sometimes when per-
| sons are outraging decency in q particularly
offensive and staggering way, and there is no
| statute to punish them for 1t, the grief occa-
stoned by the occurrence of an act of disorder
is in some degree assuaged. by 1.-THE feeling
that the assaulted party got nothing more
| than he deserved.
Measuring them blythe harm they do. the
| adventures in the share market by day are in
| finitey more pernicious than the hazards of
the gaming house by night. Both lead to bank
! ruptcies breaches of trust, embezzIements
III A-k kls-
/ compared to the former. 1t is a curious fact
that not only the greenhorns who are cajoled
/ into this dangerous sport get stripped of their
means and go out psnness AMI loaded with
debt, but the experts, many of them, share the
l same fate. Sooner or later the undertow car
| ries them down. Just now, of course, there
l are quite a number of men lowering around
the purlieus of the exchange who are reck-
| oned to be impregnable in their pecuniary
strength; they form combinations, bull or
bear the market, buy tens of millions in
| Al single day, and borrow the money to
pay with-on a margin which is about as un-
reliable and risky as second mortgags-and
| count their profits or meet their losses as the
case may be, in amounts which would amaze
! anybody who got his living by honest industry
Other meu, who preceded them. have done the
same thing, seeing times when they thought
themselves worth millions, and turning out at
| last to be worth great deal less than nothing.
The chances are looked upon in the street as
| much more than even that large operator,
no matter how successful he may be for awhile,
will ultimately be overborne by some adverse
current Jacob Little was monarch of the
brokers' board generation ago, and held the
i sceptre for years. His sway was undisputed.
BE wass popularly regarded as proof against
i any kind OF reverse. He was not over scrupu-
| lous in his methods, and yet he had pride In
keeping up the appearance Of being true to
his word. He once entered into bargain with
Boston firm, the conditions Of which were
that he should buy all ths shares of the stock
in certain railway that were offered in New
York, and they all that were offered in Boston.
until they advanced to figure mutually agreed
upon, when they should sell in concert and
realize their profit. One of the stipulations
of the contract was that If either party vic
lated its condition in any particular he should
l be liable to the other for tfe sum of thirty
! thousand dollars. When the stock had ad-
| vanced from SO to about 20 the Boston firm
l found they were getting an enormous quantity
| of it. 1t strained them to buy and pay for so
much. But as it kept pouring in upon them
day by day, they took oare of it until dread
! full suspicion crossed their minds, whereupon
/ they wrote TO Little to know whether he could
/ explain the mystery. He cooly replied that
/ he had violated the terms of the agreement,
and sent them his cheque for thirty thousand
l dollars. In other words, as soon as the stock
had reached point high enough to answer his
l purpose ne sent all he had purchased at the
low rates to Boston and had it sold to his con-
fedsrates there. The subject came up before
the board of brokers; proposition was made to
| expel Little; but he defended himself on the
| plea that he had kept his faith; that he
| had promised to do certain thing or else to
forfeit $4,000. 1t was optional with him to do
| one Or the other. He took his choice, paid his
money and there was an end Of it. don's
| know what effect such poor casuistry as this
| had on the Board, but for some reason he was
not expelled. However he failed afterwards,
SO that his cunning did not serve him in the
/ long run.
Daniel Drew was estimated to possess at one
| period as much as five millions. There were
| people who rated him at double that When
| he was treasurer Of the Erie Railway he
skinned that unlucky corporation alive. He
didn't rob it outright as Fisk and Gould after
wards did, but he iockeyed it and played pool
with its assets and did variety of things which
if we had had any law at that time, criminal or
civil either, would have brought upon him se-
we're penalties. He escaped prosecution and
| yet he is wretchedly poor to-day, or IL he has
any property of any kind he has secreted ii so
carefully that the sharpest lawyer and the
most expert accountant in the city cannot find
l the trail of 1t.
Others there were and great many Of them,
who strutted on the same stage for q while and
were then lost to sight and heard of no more.
There are hundreds of men now who are try
| ing to ekeout subsistence as ''curbstone brok-
| ers" in Broad street, who had such run Of
luck once in puts and calls and "longs''
and shorts" that they never dreamed thai
any tornado of adversely could uproot them.
1t is a fatality that those who get rich sudden