Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-05
GOSSIP ABOUT PEOPLE.

GOSSIP ABOUT PEOPLE.
Stories About Cal Brice, Who Wants to be
OhiO's senatOr-How He LOss s175, 600
and Made FOrtune-some Famous
Women.
ESPECIAL coRREsPoNDENcE OF THE DIsPATcH.I
WAsHNGToN. January 4-Cal Brice, the
New York millionaire is making his can
vass for the Ohio Senatorship at Columbus in
silk hat broadcloth coat and patent leather
boots. He cuts a different figure now than he
did when l knew him there nine years ago.
He was building the Ohio Central Railroad,
out of which he got his start in $780, and he
used to come around the Ohio State Capitol
with his pantaloons in his boots, rustic
coat spattered with mud and slouch hat
pulled over his steel-blue eyes. He worked
with will and came up to Columbus to scheme
for millions with Charlie Foster, who was then
Governor. Ex- congressman Lamison, Of Lima,
who has long been one of Brlce's right-haDd
men, tells me that Brice lost in the first in
stance on the Ohio Central, and when
it was done he owed Charlie Foster
$4,000. Foster and he had been
engaged in railroad building before, and Brice
had cleared $4,000 out of the strip of road
which runs from Fremont to Lima. He had
put this into the Ohio Central with Foster, and
he had lost this as well as the amount above
mentioned. Foster, however, had confidence
in him, and the result of the plottlngs was that
they ran branch from the Ohio Central into
the great coal fields of the Sunday Creek Val
ley This branch paid so well that Brice was
able to pay Foster the SIl5,0O0 he owed him
and to have Sl35, 900 left 1t was after this that
he originated the Nickel Plate scheme pushed
1t through, and made. in connection wlth.sev-
eral others, about SI3.0O0.000 out of it. Since
fhnWn h. I1a l..
tions, has lost some money and made more. He
moved long ago from Ohio to New York, and
he now owns house there which cost him
S25OOO0. He is worth at least S., 00O 900, and is
am told getting richer every year All OF his
prosperity has come within the last ten years,
and decade ago he was red-whiSkered, blue
eyed young lawyer of 80 odd years on the
ragged edge of country practice.
Brfce's First Diamond Purchase.
IT was at this time that Brice made an invest
ment for his mother. the story OF which
heard last night. His father was, you know
poor Methodist preacher and money meant a
great deal to the family. His mother inherited
a small sum, and when Cal told her tEat he saw
a good place to invest it, she gave every cent of
it to him, although she had four young children
yet to educate. She warned Cal to be careful.
but Mr.. Brice, with the sanguinity which has
made his future speculations a success. put the
money into the Ohio Central, and, by the aid
Of the Sunday. Creek branch, trebled it,
He received mis- profits from the deal
somewhere in the East, and he was so pleased
with the success of his mothers investment
that he put third of the money into dia-
monds, and when he returned home and his
mother timidly asked as to the state Of her in
heriJance Cal pompously handed her the case
containing the gems. Mrs. Brice was in de-
spair. She thought the purchase very foolish,
and she said that, Notwithstanding he had in
creased her investments and had got her back
twice as much in money as she gave him, she
could not see how any good could come from a
ings on anything SO useless as Jew
elry. "She had" says my friend, "the finest
diamonds iu Lima, but her income was still in
sufficient for her to carry out the education Of
her children. Her predictions of her son, how
ever, did not come true, and mis- successful
career soon supplied her with all the money |
she needed"
How Brice Became Fraternity Man.
p REPRESENTATIVE OWENS says that when
Briee went to college he was by no means
rich, and he often found it hard work to make |
the ends meet The D. K. E. Fraternity was |
the swell one of the college, and its members
embraced such men as General Sam Hunt of |
Cincinnati, and others. A number Of the boys |
saw that Brice was brainy fellow and his |
name was proposed. The rule of the society |
election of a candidate and Brice's name was |
twice blackballed. The members of the Fra |
ternity demanded who had cast the opposing |
vote and they found that it was young aristo- [
crat named Fisk, of Covington, who said he
didn't want Brice in the Fraternity because he /
was poor fellow and had not what he cOnsid-
cred high enough social standing. The re-
manning members of the Fraternity were, how
ever SO desirous of admitting Brice that they I
informed Fisk that the question had resolved
itself into one of himself or Brice, and that If
he again voted against Brice he would be ex-
PEELED from the Fraternity. The result was
that Brice became a member of the ID. K. E.
and that Mr.. Fisk voted for him.
Kate Field and Her Paste Pot.
THE noted women of the country are making
an onslaught upon Washington. Kate
Field has estab lished herself at the Shoreham.
The first edition Of her journal numbered 25-
000 and she tells me she has come to stay. She
has den on the sixth floor of Vice President
Morton's fat, and when I called upon her last
night found her grand piano turned into
library table, and it was covered with piles of
newspaper clippings, stray bits of manuscript,
q paste pot as big as tWo-gallon crock, and
pair of scissors as long as your arm. An
antique mahogany writing desk in a corner
near the window and under the gas Jets was
likewise filled with proofs and copy, and
noticed that the ink on Kate's quill pen was
still moist as she arose and babe me good even
ing. She took me from her den into her recep-
tion room. 1t is one of the cozlest and most
Of the parlors in Wash
ingtou. Its walls are hung with rare
engravings and beautiful etchings and
Just opposite the den shows out
an autographic receipt of Alexander Pope for
the guineas which he received for his transla-
tion of the Iliad. This is no index of the
prices which Miss Field will pay for literary
matter. Just now she is running her journal on
a business basis, and her first edition. in add-
tion to the salaries of her editorial force, cost
her but 81 30. She is'going to make it pay if
hustling will do it. She is hustler, too and, in
the forties she has as much energy and youth
as when she stepped out of her teens into her
twenties as correspondent of the Philadelphia |
Press and the New York Tribune in London and
Paris. Later on she became an actress, and
she even did some of the song and
lance business, inheriting remarkable dra-
matte talent from her father, who was an actor
editor and play writer. She was a success as a |
and, though she failed IN the co-opera-
i've dress reform scheme, there is no reason |
Why she should not make good thing out of !
his Washington journal. She is tight, bright, |
Tiry slender lady OF about medium height, with !
brown hair bright eyes and \ tongue which can
,alk for two hours at a stretch and advance |
lew idea in every sentence.
Susan D. Anthony and PhGbe Couzins.
7 CALLED upon Susan B. Anthony last night |
at the Riggs House, and found her firmly im-
planted on her women's rights Notifications.