Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-02-18
EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENTS.

Gould Written Seriously by a Freedman.
Victor Fournel translstion) Literary Digest.
Jay Gould held the first rank in that fantastic
list of Yankee billionaires in which the Wander
bilts and the Macksys come Immediately after
him. He had acquired his colossal fortune by
speculation solely, and without troubling him
self with excessive scruples. He was the king
of railways, just as Vanderbilt the king Of
steamboats,. He a man Of the stock ex-
change, playing necessarily at raising and
depreciating values in the market. His
habits were simple. He neither drank nor
smoked, and never went into society.
He neither had, nor affected, any taste for the
arts, despising the frivolity which caused his
rivals, for the sake of showing their picture
galleries, to lose much good money. which
they could have placed in a vastly more ad-
vantageous manner. He not the man to
pay 900 for picture by Milet or Meis-
sonier. He much preferred to buy three
hundred shares Of the Submarine Cable Com
panv.
Nevertheless by dint of much persuasion he
was induced to sit for his portrait to Herkomer
swearing. however, that he would give the
painter five sitiings and not fifteen minutes
more Mr.. Gould was astonished that u serious
minded artist should give SO many hours to
painting picture, when SO much money could
be gained on the stock exchange during the
same length of time. In the course of the fifth
sitting the sitter pulled ont his watch and said
to the astonished artist: According to our con-
tract you have but twenty mnues more. If ut
the expiration of that time the painting is not
finished L will throw it on your hands" The
portrait was completed within the time specified
and like the prince who complimented a pian-
list, after playing his great piece, by saying to
him with evident admiration, "Sir, ! have
never seen pianist perspire az much As YOU"
asta
in these words: HE is an excellent painter;
he is prompt to the minute
MIR. Gould was once persuaded by some
friends to travel in Europe. II is told Of him
that when in Amsterdam his friends expected
him to accompany them to the chief museum.
He suddenly disappeared. He made his ap-
pearance at luncheon, rubbing his hands. In
stead Of going to the museum he had gone to
the stock exchange, where he had made
s400,00G That was very much better than
going to look at Rembrandt's Might Guard"
Jay Gould began to make his fortune when
he was twelve years old In his sixteenth year
he was the proprietor Of a great factory, the
superintendent of which he made his own
father. in order to prove that the latter was
altogether in the wrong in saying that his son
would never be good for anything. At eighteen
he obtained a diploma as engineer and was
gagged in vast enterprises Of public works. At
twenty he erected an enormous tannery and
founded town, to which. like Alexander the
Great, he gave his name and called it Could
borough. When he was thirty he was worth
So 000, 900. and then it was that he began his
colossal speculations in railways.
II was he who conceived the idea Of fighting
rival railways, not only bv lowering the tariff
of charges to the lowest limits, but by giving
each traveller ticket gratuitously. with break
fast. When he had ruined his competitors and
bought their roads and material at an insignifi-
cant price he suppressed the breakfasts and
raised high the tariff of charges. Still wildly
remembered is frightful duel la American
conducted by him with blows from a locomo-
tive on the Susquehanna line, against the adver-
snries who refused to cell to him the end of
while he was in possession of the other
end. Many human lives were sacrificed in
this bloody encounter. in which he triumphed.
Before he died he had monopolized nearly all
the railways in the United States. There was
something of the trapper of Fenimore Cooper
il this little taciturn man. and it would have
been necessary to scratch his civilized skin
only little TO find the savage beneath
During his last illness he foresaw with an in
falhble scent the consequences of his death to the
market. There would be good profit in it, il
not for him. at least for his son and heirs: SO
from his deathbed he dictated orders to be sent
to his brokers as soon as he closed his ewes. In
that he showed himself good father and am
confident that Mr.. George Gould will not
shrink from a sacrifice of some hundreds Of
bank notes to get possession of the paternal
corpse, in daring spectators shall put
hands on that family jewel, as happened in the
case of Aston.
What fortune exactly did this autocrat Of the
dollar leave to his heirs2 The estimates made
immediately after his death varied between
billion and half and two billions. $50. 900 900
francs, with minimum revenue of 10, 900 900
francs. Later information has reduced these
formidable figures. have seen an article which
asserts positively that. in consequence
Of unfortunate speculations during his
last years. Mr.. Gould left at
the time of his death 500, OO0, 600 only. Can
it be possible? III it be SO Mr.. Mackay can
repeat the words of old Rothschild. When he
was told that Aguado a financier who was
thought to be worth go 0O0, 900, had left but
half that sum. he exclaimed: All poor
Aguado! l had always thought he was quite
comfortably off,"