The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-04-17
Our New York Letter.
The squail Among the Stock gamblers
The Cost Of Jay Gould's AlIIance-RaiI-
way shares Down 10 Hard Pan-The
City Charter aud the Evarts Commits
sion-The Custom. House.
NEW YORK. Apr. Il, 1871

referred to last week, has since swollen into
quite refreshing tornado. The railway man
ayers who thought to make to themselves
friends of "the mammon of unrighteousness''
by forming an alliance with Jay Gould are
paying the penalty of their mistake. Rock
Island, hitherto a favorite on the exchange, has
fallen into marked disrepute and there was
decline in the stock which occasioned a fresh
panic on the street, and change of officers of
the company. Chicago and Northwestern, a
road managed b7 the same parties, has fallen
prodigiously and the spectators in it have met
with enormous losses. The whole business of
gambling in shares has received wholesome
check, and it is to be hoped that the decline
will continue until these corporations come un-
der the control of bone fde owners, and are
conducted with reference to the public inter-
ests.
1t would seem as if the final stage of the
great convulsion through which the country
has been passing for the last three years would
be reached as soon as the value of railway
shares was brought down to the level of all
other kinds of property. The artificial methods
by which they have been kept up so long are
beginning to be revealed. They have been
mortgaged all the while quite as deeply, rea-
lively, as real estate, and the process Of fore.
closure in the one case is summary, while in
the other it is slow. The volume of transac-
tions in stocks is several hundred fold greater
than II real estate. A hundred millions is %
dull days work on the exchange. The bulk of
the shares bought are Immediately pawned
with the bankers and money LENDERS, and II the
tod ;o
failure. The brokers who carry on the nego-
tiations are the nominal borrowers. When the
lenders squeeze then, they in turn squeeze their
principals and if they both get sucked dry,
as they often do, the collaterals are sold to new
purchasers who use them over again as pledges
for the payment of loans. A system more per-
nicious and demoralziDg could not be con-
csived of. 1t is destructive of all legitimate
business and ruins nine out of ten Of the people
who try it. II is game of craft and cunning,
and the trickster who outwits his fellow to-
day is as likely as not to fall victim to some
rival sharper tomorrow. The more panic
there is in Wall Street the better Every stock
| iobber who is driven to the wall, unconsciously
contributes to the publication of The commercial
atmosphere. With the majority of these reck-
less operators it is merely question of time,
and the sooner Nemesis overtakes them, the
sooner we may look for stability in values, and
more general appreciation of the importance
of honest industry.
There is one gratifying deduction from this
invigorating upheaval among the votsries of
chance. The moral sense of the people is not
so blunted but that they shrink with instructive
aversion from having anything to do with cor
porations of which Jay Gould is director Or
perhaps an appreciation of the enormous risks
they run by such investments exercises still
more dissuasive influence. Any body who wants
to realize the awful danger of own
| ing for an hour shares in a COM
pany that is liable to his manip-
ulations has only to recall the fate of the suffer-
ers of the Erie Railway. There was a great
trunk road with advantages equal, or nearly so,
to those of the New York Central, literally CON
sumed and reduced to bankruptcy by his auda-
cious over issues of certificates of its stock
After that experience of malfeasance, whoever
ventures to buy Union Pacific, Rock Island, OF
any other stock in the management of which
Gould participates desc rves to lose every dollar
he pays. Individual losses of that kind are
L luOEO budu OoupOuodtCu ny gains W lu6 puDilC.
1t will not do to dispense with honesty and
good faith in the discharge of fduciary trusts.
Personal integrity ought to be demanded as The
first condition of the bestowal of a confidence
of that nature. If people cannot be made to
understand this, except by being plucksd for
their gullibility the more rapidly and sweep
ingly they are despoiled the sooner they will
profit, or at any rate point a moral, by the
lessons of adversely.
Assuming the correctness Of these premises,
and fancy there are very few persons in New
England who will in the slightest degree dis
sent from them. the inevitable conclusion is
that the more furiously the storm In Wall
Street blows and the more adventurers it tosses
out of sight, the greater will be its benefits to
the masses who live by their industry. 1t is in
fact a delightfully."- invigorating and health
| giving panic-it is impossible to have too much
of it; the only fear is we shall not have enough
that it will be patched up in some way before
| the bottom is reached, and that the gamblers
| will have chance before the end comes to set
new traps, rope in fresh gudgeons and saddle
some of their burdens upon men who are not
| so much knaves as simpletops.
We Arc Just now at that critical point of
| state and municipaf ufrairs that is SO trying to
| the nervous system of every property owner
| and tag payer. The legislature meets on the 1st
| of January. 1t begins to get ready for busi-
| ness about three months afterwards. Then IL
sits till the middle or end of May, backing and
| filling, twisting and turning, passing measures
in one house and so dis6guring them in the
other with alterations (they use the word
amendment, that the SAVIOR is all taken out Of
them. No human being can form any idea Of
what il anything, will ultimately be accom-
plished, nor whether the pending projects are
| worth experimenting upon. Every winter
there is about the same average of attempts al
| charter tinkering. The problem of governing
| this city seems as far from solution as ever,
There has never been any system in vogue long
enough to have its merits or defects fairly
tested. -Four years ago there was brand new
charter enacted 1t was prepared with grea,
elaboration, discussed freely and fully and wa
popularity supposed to be wonderful improve
ment on all preceding plans that had ever beer
adopted. There is no particular complaint oi
its failure, if any fault found with it it is in
general and incohsrent way, but the restless
ness of our legislators displays itself in efforts
to effect changes in it. There is some doubt
whether the notifications proposed would i'm.
prove it essentially. At any rate they do moi
seem to be based on any broad principles o.
civil polity. They are more in the nature o.
expedients and make-shifts than Of wise pro
visions for regulating local affairs in accord
ance with the teachings of experience anC
sound political economy.
The charter commission of which Mr.. Evart
was at the head m ade recommendation touch
ing the government of cities, which every sen
sble man will agree with, and that was tha
only tax and rent payers should have the con
trolling power over expenditures. That would
prove an adequate remedy for wastefulness snd
extravaganza. There is precisely one difficulty
about it, but it is rather serious-in fact
fatal one. 1t is simply impracticable. 1t il
not new device by any manner of means. Th,
attempt has been made to put 1t in force repeat
edly and in variety of ways. 1t was of n,
use. Sugar.coat the dose as daintily as yol
| will the populace naver will swallow A. 7