Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1888-01-29
which is rather too mild. There is
golden mean.

A FINANCIAL MRLANdE.
One of the most prominent figures IN
the railroad world just at this moment is
nnouestionably Austin Corbin. president
of the Philadelphia and Reading Rail-
road Company, who is accused of very
small trickery in his dealings with the
Woodworking operatives in the coal
mines of the company. Many Of our
railroad presidents are close-fisted, not
over scrupulous men, who think that
the principal object OF their existence is
10 earn big dividends, however outrage
ouslv the stock OF the corporations
NAV have been watered IL is entirely
unnecessary to point out that the Reading
capitalization represents reservoir oil
water. Whatever may be said about
funding big debts, lower rates Of inte-
rest and all the rest of the argument
whereby the blunders OF phenomenal
announcement are clearly revealed,
TO make the operatives responsible for
the loss by the Reading company through
arrant stupidity of twelve millions IN
coal-mining within twelve years, is
as disreputable as to deliberately
pick their pockets as they come
up from their nard toll in the
mines, and it is significant that the peo-
pie of Pennsylvania, as rule, sympa-
thize with the strikers. Men like George
w. Childs and Anthony w. Drexel, of
Philadelphia, who are large stockholders
in the Reading, favor arbitration of the
question of wages, but Mr.. Corbin seems
t. think that be can gall the sore back OF
labor With impunity. II is such men
who embitter the laboring classes against
the existing state of society, who 10y
their purblind meannees envenom the
spirit of discomfort, which, among the
vicious, proceeds to the length of An
archism. The French aristocrats who
shot peasants for the amusement OF
seeing them drop from the Paris roofs
were responsible for the Robespierres,
the Marats, the Dantons, who came later
with the guillotinc for the work, of ven
geance. 1t was the French aristocrats
and capitalists who started the pen OF
Jean jacques Rousseau, the French
Henry George of the last century, at
whom they laughed at first in light
Gallo skepticism, though as Carlyle
shows, their skins went to bind the
second edition of bis works.
TYPICAL NEW YORK BOY.
The success Of not few young men
is one of the interesting facts of Wall
street. Hurrying across to the palatial
Mills building from the Marble Stock
Exchange ] often see a rather slightly
built, boyish-looking yOung man. who
has been in Wall street since he began,
at thirteen years of age, as an Office
boy for a broker at So a week, pc
Rod. that is, OF twenty years. 1t is
Charles ". Foster. tie became a
partner in q large house at twenty
one, and is now worth quar-
ter of million. lie owns a
house in west Seventeen street, for which
he paid $4,000. He is a typical New
York boy of the better class, brought up
in moderate circumstances, securing his
early education in the public schools,
and largely self-educated in the great
school OF life. He is a member of the
Stock, Produce, and Coffee Exchanges,
and also of the Manhattan Club. BE is
one of the quickest men at figures in
Wall street. The bare facts OF his sue
cessful career are sufficiently indicative
of bis abilities.
SIX MINING COMPANIES.
I occasionally see in the financial re-
gion man of polished address and
rather handsome features set off with an
imperial, who has had an eventful ca
reer. 1t is ID. T. Verdenal, who is well
known in the far West. He presides
over the destinies of six mining compa-
MES here, and the SIX may become a
dozen before the year is finished. He
is New York State man 10y birth,
but he went in early life to st.
Louis, and then having been smlt-
ten with the gold fever he migrated
to San Francisco. He subsequently
became a graduate from the st. Louis
University and the Harvard Law School,
and was admitted to practice Ill the Su-
preme Court OF Massachusetts,. He re-
turned to San Francisco and practiced
law for a time, but in 1868 went to
White Pine while the mining excite
ment was at its height in that in
teresting cemetery of human hopes. He
had sort of mausOleum on Treasure
Hill; it was a seven-by-nine cabin, and
in the long nights the roar Of the noun
tain blast through the great natural cor
ridors was the requiem of his aspirations.
| Bacchanalian orgies, unnumbered faro
banks, wild hopes, bitter disappoiut.
ments, and ga man for breakfast was
| the brief chronicle of the feverish life of
Treasure Hill. Some rubbed the lamp
of Aladdin and found wealth; others
found their way back to civilization as
best they might. Chloride Flat might
have We'd with the Poker Flat of Bret
Harte as a scene Of exciting fiction with
a foundation OF truth. Its glorles van
! ished, however, Iuto the air, and MIR.
Verdenal left for San Francisco,
where he became the editor OF
the Chronicle. He is of French
extraction and of versatile mental
endowments. He could, if necessary,
WELD pick in q mine one day and the
journalists pen the next. Later he be-
came interested in mines in Nevada, no.
! tably those on the Comstock lode, and
also in Utah, Arizona, and elsewhere.
He is great friend OF George Roberts
and Asbury Harpending, those pious
persons who develop mines of the most
undoubted value from sheer love of their
fellow-man and never were known to
come out ahead while the stockholders
were IN the woods hunting for the fence.
Mr.. Yerdenal is member OF num-
Der of clubs and is esteemed for his So
cial qualities, is still in the prime of life,
and though he has not accumulated a
million, is in comfortable circumstances
CLEwss NEPHEW.
One of the young men whom | see on
Fifth avenue and elsewhere in the fash.
ionable quarter formerly had room In
the same house in Buffalo where Grover
Cleveland had his bachelor quarters
while mayor of that city, and saw not a
little of tie burly Chief Magistrate when
he never dreamed of becoming Governor
of New York, much less President of the
United States. 1t is James b. Clews, q
nephew of Henry Clews, the banker and
broker, and associated with him in
business. he is thirty years OF age,
with a refined cast of features, and
n full light brown beard that gives him
/ n corooubo4 clerical aenoct Xat in