Morning journal and courier., 1882-12-25
A Messenger Boys Fortune.

| Outwitting the Standard Oil Company and Making S4O,OoO. From the Cincinnati Enquirer.l
 The Standard Oil company, the only con- cern in the world that is powerful enough to l compel the combined trunk line railroads to l do it's bidding, demanding and recefving | from them rates which made opposition i'm possible and crushed out every rival has lately been beaten by 8 messenger boy In the history of the Standard this is the only time 1 it has ever been outwitted. Tom Scott, when ! alive and president of the Pennsylvania 1 railroad, outgeneraled by the Standard Vanderbilt and his allies were not match l for Rockefeller, and they were compelled to allow him rebates which enabled him to build up the greatest monopoly the world has ever known When he got ready he laid a pipe l line of his own from the oil regions to Cieve
 land In one direction, and from the oil gions to the seaboard in another direction, and then told the trunk line managers who
 had enriched him that they could go to that place where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
 But this man with his millions has been
 outwitted by Mike Keatiug 16 years old, a
 messenger boy of the Western Union Tele
 graph company at Oil City Mike has been in the employ of the telegraph company since he
 was old enough to carry dispatches, and nearly all of this time he has been in the Oil
 Exchange at Oil City, carrying messages to and from the brokers. The large operators in petroleum send their dispatches in cipher
 The boy had carried so many messages sent by the Standard from it's headquarters at Cleveland that he had unraveled the mystic characters and could read them like a printed page Just prior to the recent extraordinary advance in the petroleum market, when the price jumped in few days from fifty cents to S1 B. Keating carried number of tele- grams to the Standards brokers, ordering them to buy large blocks of oil The mono f0n1 ha6 laid ifc crnlo fa h1n Inc, rl1ak and it's Oil City brokers were ordered to buy everything. Buy half 8 million barrels,D ''buy million barrels" '.buy two million barrels" were the way these orders came in. They were riddles to all but the brokers who received them and Mike Keating the messen
 ger boy, who delivered them.
 Keating, although mere boy, knew some thing extraordinary was soon to happen.
 The market which had been like a stagnant
 pool for year, was already creeping up the scale. Orders for immense blocks of oil
 were still coming from the Standards head quarters. There no time to lose. But
 what could boy do without a dollar in his pocket Heating went to one of the largest
 operators on the floor of the exchange, out side of the Standards agents, and told him
 he had pointer" The broker laughed at him. The boys earnestness finally com- nanded attention and the broker agreed to his proposition. which that the broker should furnish money for & +sdeal" if he was satisfied with the information, and divide the profits equally. Then the messenger told the broker what he had and of the telegrams he had been carrying from the Standards Cleveland office. The next message that fell into the boys hands carried secretly to the broker and translated. It was an order to buy everything that was offered. The broker probably swallowed to keep his heart down anyway, he went back to the exchange and began to buy. He saw the Standards agents buying right and left and was satisfied 8 big deal was in progress. He took every thing he could get, until he had . round million barrels. The market was already jumping fast and his million barrels had been secured at an average cost of seventy two cents. He was loaded to the guards. Orders to buy and orders to sell were pouring in from every quarter and the excitement was becoming intense. The market was still bounding upward, with the usual Auctua- tions. Every time the price advanced cent or declined cent the broker saw profit or loss of $10,o00 He kept his head, how ever, and when the market scored drove eighty cents he began to unload. The Stand ard men were on hand to take everything, and he got rid of all his oil at an average price of eighty cents barrel. He had bought at seventy two and his profits were therefore eight cents a barrel or $S0,000 in all He divided equally with Mike Heating, the messenger who had nnraveled the Standards B cipher, according to agreement. It is we'll enough to remember that oil touched $1 35 during the ten days spurt, and if the broker had held on until the top was reached the profits of the two would have been $630, 900.
 It goes without saying that the Standard Oil company has a now cipher and one mes senger boy Is out of job.