Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-12

came very near costing me my liberty. While
the thief who stole my mouse trap was COM
mitted for trial was given to understand
that owing to my inability to furnish bail
for I knew no one in New York them
should be detained as witness until the trial
came off. 1t was not pleasant introduction
to New York but have never forgotten it,
and its recollectian has often afforded me a
good deal of amusement. Fortunately for
me, there was detective in the place who
had been hunting my mouse-trap thief for
years, and who had requlsltlon from,
think, the Governor of Pennsylvania or New
Jersey. He saved me. forgot to say that
when in the course of the examination the box
was opened to verify the truth of my state
ment and the purloiner of my great invention
found it was only mouse trap. his face as.
sumed such an expression of disgust that L
really could not help laughing at him,
although 1 was at the time In one of the most
uncomfortable positions l had certainly up to
that time been placed in. That mouse trap
| incident got OF course into next days Herald.
/ remember the title of the article very well
- How Mouse Trap Caught Thief 1t
was the first appearance Of Jay Gould in the
pages of the Herald.
81 have been studying this city, con-
trap exploit, and great as has been its
growth in the past / predict still greater
development in the future. The question
now is not, What position shall we hold
| toward Chicago or St. Louis or Philadelphia ?
but, Where shall we stand as regards the
cities of the world? La less than fifty years
| have the faith that New York will be as
large as London. La twenty-five years, prob
ably less, think, it will be the money center
of the world"
"How about another Atlantic sea port say
at Norfolk %
Zone might possibly be made there. /
mean some elevators might be built and a
| line Of steamers started aud some trade done,
| but these do not constitute 8 city. Pleasure
| is a much more important factor in business
| than people generally suppose. and business
men always want to live where they do bust
ness and can at the same time have some de-
gree of comfort or luxury. Great libraries,
| picture galleries, theaters, parks, newspapers,
| all fit into the web and wool of trade and go
| to make up great city.
| AMERICAS woNDRoUs GROWTH.
"The growth of New York, however, 2"
| Mr.. Gould went on in his low, silken tones,
| finds a parallel in the growth of the coun-
| try. We are bounding along at pace such
as the world never before witnessed. We
are becoming rich SO rapidly that it is diff
| cult to fix a limit in Imagination to our gran
deur as nation even in the not very distant
future"
Empire or republic?
| Republic (emphatically)
Gan enormous quantity of our bonds,
! continued Mr.. Gould, "has been sent back
from Europe during the past four or five
years. What has become of them? The
prediction used to be made some years ago
that when in the course of trade, in the con-
vulsions of business, in a period of panicky
doubt as to the perpetuity of our institutions
or the honesty of our intentions, these mill
| ions of securities should be sent home, they
would fall SO low that they would be bought
by the pound. Well, large portion of
| them, as / said, has returned. Where have
they gone? They have been taken up
| quietly by the people and absorbed. l do
not think they will ever again cross the At
| lantic. Again, consider the enormous
mass of bonds and stocks of insurance, min
! ing, railroad, canal and other stocks that
| have been distributed in the same way-for,
as | said, corporate property was never so
widely scattered as it is at the present time
and it will enable you TO form an idea of the
rapid production of wealth in the United
States. The savings banks exhibits of the
| State which the Herald printed few weeks
/ ago Lell Tie SJOrY. w Hdb WAS Tue lnCTcds6 III
! deposits for 1880 over 1879? Forty millions
of dollars, if | recollect exactly. Now the
savings banks depositors and investors in
| bonds and stocks are two widely different
| classes. The savings banks represent the
| mechanic aud the workingman, clerks who
| have small salaries, women who work for
their living, who sew or teach school small
farmers-in a word, the masses The figures
of the savings banks reports show that this
portion of our people are prosperous. The
immense development of our railroads, the
improvements that are being made In cities
and towns all over the country, in the erec-
ton of new places of business and dwelling
houses, the absorption, as [ said before, of
our bonds, all go to prove that the mercantile
and trading classes are also prosperous"
"wHAT OF THE soUTH?
The South is becoming rich as fast as the
other portions of the country. The new gen.
Grafton of the South is altogether different
from the one that fought for slavery and car
ried on the war; 1t will care more about
business and less about politics. The South
has had good crops for years, and has OBJ
tanned fair prices for them. The Southern
people are simple in their habits, less luxu-
rious and extravagant than those of the
North, and they must have saved good deal
of money lately 1t is fact, known to bank
ers and others who have looked into the ques-
ton, that since the resumption of specie pay
ments a large amount of gold has disappeared
somewhere. The popular impression is that
it is in the Treasury and in the bank vaults.
Undoubtedly there is large amount of it
slowed away in this manner, but not ALL I
believe there is good deal of it locked up
in the old stockings of the colored man and
brother in the Southern States, particularly
in the cotton belt. Of course they will never
tell it, even to one another. But l am con-
WINGED that my theory is a correct one. The
more intelligent of the Southern negroes have
the instinct of saving and accumulation
very strongly developed. See what they did
within the first five or six years after they
were out of slavery. Their savings
created one of the largest savings banks in
the country. No, there is no part of that
nap (the United States) upon which you can
lay your hand and not find the classes who
have In them the elements of success succeed
ing. AS for the others, they would fail in an
Ell Dorado"
DANGER SIGNALS.
"But," said he, musingly, There is one
peril"
WHAT"
Injudicious interference by Congresses
and State Legislatures with business. TWAS
legislation that precIpitated the panic of 70.
IfODaDly IL WOQkQ nave CulHo SOoutT VI ldGeT,
but there are storms and cyclones on the great
sea of trade and commerce as there are on
the ocean, and the coast is strewn with
wrecks. The Granger legislation OF the
Northwest some years ago cost this country
more money than it will ever know. Moth
ing is so easily frightened as capital. Men
are not going to put their money into enter
prises without some security that the con-
ditions upon which it is invested shall be
kept. a charter, say to build railroad, is
compact between the State and corpora
ton which is only another name, the legal
title, for portion of the people themselves.
That contract or compact should be faith
fully observed on both sides. My con-
nection with the Union Pacific Rail
road led me into close investiga-
ton and study of this question, and
1 have coma to the conclusion, as the
result of that study, that it would have been
infinitely better for the men who built it and
for the road if they never had anything to do
with the Government IT Ia difficrlt To esti-