Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-04-24
THE SENEY SYSTEM.
The Phiianthrepio Bankers Plans and
Purposes as TO the Railroads He
aad Bis Partners Own and
Control which Run Into Memphis by
the CharIestOn ROad-rhey are
the coming Hen.

The Cincinnati Enquirer recently pub
lished an interview by "Gath" with Mr..
Seney, in New York, in which he says;
j inquired about the Seney system Of rail-
roads, as it is called, In the Southern States.
He took little map oct and SHOWED me
Bristol, on the border of Tennessee and Vir-
ginis, where his railroad system begin, and
drew the line down TO Chattanooga and
Rome, Ga, and showed how from ChRtta'
nooga there was lease on the Memphis
aud Charleston railroad BY the same combl-
nation, and how from Bone the came con
Germ owned the line 10 Selma and on TO the
Mississippi river. He pointed out how be
and his friends lad built road from Rome,
Ga, by Atlanta to Macon, and thence owned
the railroad TO Brunswick, on the coast. L
told him that had been reading somewhere
that Mr. Gould had an idea Of linking on
his Texas and Missouri Pacific system TO the
Seney system at Memphis.
"Yes," said Mr.. Seney, shat has been
brosched as rumor; and more recently the
idea that the Gould system might connect
with ours from Shreveport, La., through the
northern part of the State OF Louisiana 10
Vicksburg."
He did not volunteer any informstion on
these matters, and did not press it. Mr..
Seney then asked me come general questions
dOOuL LAG f)Oulu-Nnut l. VI iNh
economical future; how the cultivation OF
cotton and the cottou-m mills were doing there,
and about the relative sizs OF the cities in
Georgia and their relative force. He asked
particularly about The towns of Rome, Au
gusta and Oxford. / mentioned having seen
year or more ago some institutions he had
befrieDded in Georgia, and il seemed TO me
that he rather desired inform alton about
them than possessed it.
Mr.. Thomas, who comes from the foot OF
the Hooking valley, somewhere about Ports
mouth, Is an iros furnace man. Mr.. Brice,
the son OF a Presbyterian minister, is from
northwestern Ohio. There are two or three
other persons in this combination, and they
have made the impression on our times by
the vitality with which they develop rsil-
road construction, and keep things alive
after the old hands at the market have either
lost their confidence or become weary. At
this moment, when Gould ia about to start
on yachting expedition, and the Wander
bilts have gone in for pleasure, and the
Huntington systems, both from the Chesa-
peake and the Gulf, are about done, the
young men around Mr.. Seney are not only
reaching out for development and couuec-
tions, but they are following the example OF
the banker at their head, doing quiet works
of charity-not such az are impressed upon
them BY mendlcAncy and audiclty, but such
things as come within their range of feast
biliiy and propriety.
When they built the Nickel-P Plate raiIrosd
| they were menaced by weak or treacherous
| men, and it was the msrvei Of some of their
friends that they had the tenacity to hang on
as they did. However weak they may have
| been then, and that is merely a tradition
here, they we're strong enough to force the
| Vandsrbilts 10 buy their property and make
| them all rich. they have now embarked ir
a very comprehensive Southern system
! whose contracts and connections reach from
! Norfolk and from the Pennsylvania rsilro ID
| to Memphis, to the lower Mississippi and tt
| the lower Atlantic. They have paralleleC
the old State system Of railroads in Georgia
Mr.. Seney has given money in Georgia
While pouring other money in TO connect hi
| railroad parts, he has endowed an institution
| at Macon and another at Oxford.