The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1886-10-08
a CELEBRATED SPECULATION.
Jim Keene's Unsuccessful Career in New
Nork-His Uptown Flat.

Nork-His Uptown Flat.
James Keene, the celebrated speculator, is
living this summer in a rented cottage OF
very plain character at Far Rockaway, to
which place he goes every night, giving more
time to his family In these days of privation
than when he was at the top of the social and
speculative world. Persons who know him
say that he sometimes has to borrow his fare
over the ferry, not that he is SO desperately
hard up, but that he has pinched his expenses
at every point in order TO get square with the
world and have another start. He Is of 4
rather cold bearing, and is accused of having
too much confidence in himself, so that from
time to time he has lost the support of power
full men who would have, with a little solicit
tation on his part, helped him through.
Mr.. keene's condition when he came to New
York city was very substantial He had ut
least 81 600, 900, and was presumed TO have IN
California further backing. He arrived in the
city when there was no leader TO Wall street,
and the brokers came around him with hungry
eyes to get his orders. One of those brokers,
who has made s., OOO, 900 10y his commissions,
has refused to carry stocks for him of late,
and another who is deep in his account would
not even carry zoo shares for him. He was
one of the chief inventors of the grain specu-
lation coincident with the stock market. He
was sharply reproved for having put specula-
ton into the neceSSaries of life, and in the end
he lost SS,OOO,UOO IN wheat, following the uQ-
vice of Rufus Hatch. IL is said he met Hatch
at the tape measure, who was reading the
quotations with his eyes full OF tears, and he
blubbered: "keene, if you don't help me
shall break" keene went to his assistance,
and Hatch showed him how n great deal of
money might be made, but it ended in keene
being great loser. He also made a heavy
loss in the Hannibal and St. Joseph corner,
where John Il. Duff, of Boston, had attempt
ed to scoop the whole street.
friend of Duff incautiously said to
another person at n restaurant table: The
man you see yonder is Jim Keenc, and we are
going to break him" This person bethought
it well to go and tell Keene, whom he had not
previously known. keene found that he was
in the tolls, so he got to work quietly and be
gan to buy this stock, and for some of il he
paid as high Us Sd, and the same stock he
ultimately sold at 90 He made the most of
his money in Northern Pacific preferred. He
believed himself in 1877, just after the Pitts
burg riots, when he became a bull, worth
Si0,OO0,0O0. When he sold his race horse,
Foxhall, he was already hard pressed, and UNI
able to leave the city lest his absence might
be interpreted as fright or desertion. He had
no person to send but woman, who had
taken sympathetic view of his case and was
q good ncgotiant. She sold FoXhall TO Lord
Rosebery for 81, 900, which was s, 600 more
than Keene expected. Keene's fiat uptown is
said to bring him the comfortable sum OF
81 500 a month. 1t is no great amount of
money to a man still in the street, satisfied
that there is no future for him unless he re
establishes himself theoretically" III Phila-
ielnhia Times