Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-12-08
PERSONAL LIVES OF BULLS AND
BEARS.
The Late Bear Movement.


Gath" in Cincinnati Enquirer.
NEW YORK. November Is. 1882.
The excitement on the New York stock mar
ket for the past two weeks is confined to that
considerable yet hardly numerous element
which CANDLES habitualiy, and which presents
something to gamble with. The excitement is
something more than that which follows in
Europe the breaking of some notorious gamb-
ling bank, as at Monaco or Baden. by little
combination of chaps who have formed an auda-
c:ous conspiracy, and supported it with an I'M
usual quantity of money. I do not venture the
statement, but l have heard that even a faro
bank at Saratoga was beaten by the players last
year, and came out 800, 900 short on the season.
This information was not given to me by any of
the gamblers, but came from one of the hotel
men, who called my attention to the sober.
heavy faces of the proprietors who were by no
means as frisky as had generally seen them at
the close of a season.
There are in stocks. as In faro gambling,
CONSTITUTIONAL BEARS.
A bear, need hardly say, is man who
looks at the blue side of lite. and bets that
things are gong to be worse than they nov are;
that prices will presently be lower; that the
sell month or two from this time for what you
can market it Tor to-day in Wall street There
are men in this city who have been years and
years specializing in Wall street. yet hardly ever
changed their bet that every thing would fall
off in price; that nothing would go up: that there
would be a coming down, liquidation, a day
of vengeance as they express it.
was in the house of an accomplished man.
whose only weakness is his business. two weeks
n tln 10 q h;a1 ynn fhn hn0 nd hYJfi ttn,
places has fine mind and kind, rather lofty
character. We had been talking with some
gentlemen On various subjects where he showed
unusually good sense till we came to speak of
the fortunes and power of Vanderbilt and Gould.
My friend said: ''f will make wager that in
three years Vanderbilt will have wasted his
enormous fortune" We all smiled knowing
that the remark was merely an emcnation from
one of these constitutional bears; man who,
however successful in Wall street. is ont of his
moral element there. and who does not like to
see men prosper who have no refinement nor
any traits or characteristics in common with his
own intellectual self.
Said |: 'How do you venture to say that
such fortune as Vanderbilts can be lost?"
why" said he. ''by gambling. That man
bought the Nickel-platc road few days ago for
al3,GOO.OO0. lifting the money ont of his gov
eminent bonds to pay for It, Ii he will spend
$4,000, coo this week something else will be pre-
scnted to him absolutely necessary for him to
guy W CoNtT Ills QUIET ititS ucAt week OF
next month. You ncy suppress competition
by buying it up. WhcS the Western Union
Telegraph bought the Atlantic and Pacific Tcle-
graph there was hardly an interval before the
American Telegraph Company was coming for
ward. and when that had been also acquired the
Mutual Union shows itself on the horizon. The
fact that Mr. Vanderbilt haf to buy the Nickel
plate road shows the weakness ofthe system that
his father left him His father left him the adj
vice to buy nothing outside Of the state of New
York. The old man had got into trouble by
buying Il line from the Lake Shore railroad to
Pttsburg and the oil regions. He said My
son, have all your property under your eye with
in the state of New York But the next thing
we find William Vanderbilt buying the Michigan
Central railroad entire, at such an enormous
figure that he had to dispose of a great block of
his stock in the New York Central road. What
has been the result ? Is the Michigan Central
railroad such superb property that it has been
his warrant to go into that state and incur all
the responsibilities OF unpOpularity and adverse
legislation far from his LEGAL base of support !?
After he gets the Michigan Central he advances
into the Northwestern railroad. Consequently
he is going to be embro;led." continued the
broker, lin rate-cutt!ng war. which, |
anticipate, will break out every day in
the northwest. where the ease with
which railroad can be built and
the stupendous size of the crops invite compe
titiOn from half dozen great competitors all
unwilling to tolerate rivalry. and managed by
men who acquire after a time the nature Of
these boss politicians that they will not brook
advice nor a rival The grain fields of the
northwest" continued the broker, lis really
the principal object of railroad competition
now. Minnesota turned the scale several years
ago as the Chief Wheat-prOducinG state. The
wheat belt is extending west of Minnesota and
will presently cover most of Dakota, and the
Canadian regions adjacent are splendid for
wheat besides William Vanderbilt will have
to take care of the Northwestern railroad; it
has a competitor over part of the way in the
Milwaukee and st. Paul. and then to the west
the great railroads like the Illinois Central. the
Rock Island. etc. want to thrust their prOngs
UP into the Northwestern cOmpany'S territory.
With grain coming down in price, and the
farmers affected by the grain corners trying to
emily be adeficency in the cargOes and that will
make these companies FESTIVE and they will be-
gin to cut each others thrOats.''
AFTERTHOUGIITs.
What my friend the broker said at that time
made no impression on me until had seen since
the disorder come into Wall street, which has
made Gould himself cry aloud like a boy at school
being spanked. for the Secretary of the Treasury
to come to his assistance, not with SIS DOC, 900 or
S7.oO0000 week. but with $25, 600, 600 or $780,
Goo 900 at once. Ihave never seen clearer in
stance of the superlucusness of newspaper pro-
perry to SPECTATOR than here. AZ long as MIR.
Oouiu was WilliiH HIS OWH personality we never
knew how badly he was wounded, and he might
have been bleeding almost to the death but no
one could see it. Now. with daily newspaper
his wound flowed into it's columns, which begin
to grOan when he is hurt
VAN USED UP MAN.
To resume about my friend. the broker. He
said. Vanderbilt is beginning just at the wrong
time upon course of very extensive railroad
acquisition and construction. We are almost at
the end of the necessity for more railroads.
Though he is now attacking the Pennsylvania
company in its own territory, and is not only
connecting the New York Central with the
Reading railroad system at very large expense
over rough and difficult country so as to carry
coal to the western states and Canada, but he is
developing railroad lines across southern Penn
sylvania so as to make the Pennsylvania road
come out of New England. where Vanderbilt
was long supreme. Mr.. Vanderbilt has also ac-
quired the Canadian Southern road He is be.
lieved to be the chief owner of the Bee ine
which connects the Lake Shore with Missouri
The policy he has begun is a draining one. and
If we come to hard times while he is extending
in these directions, even his fortune will be
pushed to meet the claims upon him, and he
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