The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-05-22
Continued from Thiyd page J

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sewed up in the lining Of his overcoat
He was accounted exceed ngly shrewd |
and rather INSCRIPTIONS, but he be |
came very rich and made a great pc
Cunous display as was natural for a
man who had no idea of, or desire
for any other financial distinction
Very few liked or esteemed him, and
he cared not so long as he had a big
bank account Some years ago he
sustained very heavy losses, and the
collapse of banking house in which
he was a special partner carried him
down He had been badly damaged
again and again before that, but he
cannot now reCuperate from his re-
peated disasters. He must be past 90
now, and feels, understand, rather
battered and worn after his various
campaigns Believed to- be a million
aire sixteen years ago-a spectators
wealth is always uncertain and often
exists mainly on paper-he has at
present, | am told, no more than a
modest competency saved from the
NICIk VI WHAT NC OliNC lpooNooShS anu
is entirely obscure. He did not retire
from Wall street when he might have
done so with a big fortune He
waited, as so many wait, until adversely
had fallen heavily upon him.
James Fisk, Jr., generally spoken Of
as Jim Fisk, was conspicuous IN various
schemes in which Henry NJ. Smith was
concerned. Everybody remembers
him; it was impossible to ignore him,
for he thrust himself into everything
that promised notoriety. For years he
was irrepressible; he was the most
salient figure in Wall street He had
a passion for being talked about, and
he played the part of a mountebank to
draw attention. Without any principle
or regard for integrity, believing that
every man had his price, he had a fund
of genuine humor which he drew upon
50 freely that the public could scarcely
think him corrupt.
1t is unwilling to accept the fact that
a man who makes people laugh can be
a pronounced villain, the popular no.
ton of villains being that they are
silent, gloomy and scowling. Gould
and Fisk were always coupled, and in
the days of the Erie ring, Fisk was
supposed to be the ADLER rogue Of the
two. Gould was so reserved and retl-
cent, Fisk 50 demonstrative and loqua-
cious, that the Prescriptions were all in
favor of the latter. 1t long since be
came known that Fisk was, in a sense.
a puppet which jumped when Gould
pulled the string
e. No man has ever taken more pains
to advertise himself discreditably than
Fisk did. He reveled in the cheapest
kind of notoriety, and was never so
happy as when he furnished a topic for
newspaper discussion. He was most
valuable partner to the dark and silent
fnancier and was delighted to do what
the other would not have done on any
account Their relation to one another
was something akin to that of Robert
Macaire and Jacques Strop. Fisk, not
satisfied with issuing unauthorized
stock, buying judges and perverting the
ends of justice generally, exhibited
himself in company with opera-boufe
singers and burlesque actresses, and
even turned the Grand Opera House,
in which the Erie offices then were,
into a pageant for his vanity and licen-
tiousness.
Such a spectacle was never seen even
in New York. The man sci public
opinion at defiance and became the
harlequin of the day and nation, Nor
was he the merry Andrew that he some
time seemed He had rare ability for
money making, and if he had exercised
it honestly would have gained fortune.
He was lavish and prodigal avoided
all the jails that gaped for him and met
his death at the hands of a man Of his
own wit over a quarrel about an adven-
turess for whose favors they were rivals.
Stokes, now one Of the proprietors OF
the gorgeous Hoffman House, murdered
him deliberately, and would doubtless
have been more severely punished had
his victim been morally different. He
served his short term in the State prison
and emerged theretrom with a plan for
the most magnificent bauoom in the
world, which he has faithfully carried
out and attached to his hotel.
After Fisk's death his supposedto-be
vast estate seemed to melt away, his
widow having barely enough to support
her. She had spent $3.50, 900 to $500,
900 a year, and had in a manner made
ducks and brakes of his fortune. As a
leader of Wall street he was at once
shameless and unique. He acted very
much like a great boy who had drawn
the chief prize in lottery and believed
he never could spend the money.
A leader of Numerically opposite
kind is Coils p. Huntington, who from
being a hardware merchant in SaCra-
mento, became one of the contractors
of the Central Pacific Railroad, and
through that has grown to be one OF
the heaviest capitalists of the republic.
Undeniably a prime fnancier he
loves power as much as he does wealth,
and of this he is highly and Accordingly
enamored. He is estimated to own
property valued at SIS, 900 to
n /