The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-08-13
GOULD BEAT THE MATCH TRUST.
Sold a "Salted" Factory in Detroit
for n Fortune.
From the New York Press.

From the New York Press.
Edwin Gould worked clever game on
the Diamond Match Company when he
consented TO go into that concern with his
Continental company. 1t is said that he
sold plant in Detroit that cost him little
more than $4,000 for 900. and Detroit
is in ecstacies over the shrewdness of the
young son of Jay.
II took young Could less than nine
months to work the deal through that just
now is giving much amusement to finan-
cial circles. That the young flnancier
could have beaten the big match company
so easily with the little bluff he was car
rying on of pretending to manufacture
matches, is what tickles the old heads
in Wall street.
Last December Edwin Gould thought he
would give the big Diamond Match Com
pany a little shaking up, so he took a run
out to Detroit and bought the old aban-
doned iron plant of the j. e. Bolles Com
pany paying $500 for it. Then he saw
a reporter and said he intended to give
the match trust the hardest rub of its
existence.
AS a starter he called the old iron works
the Continental Match Company. Then
the young man shipped into the place a lot
of cd machinery from an abandoned fur
niture factory he owned in Kankakee, ILL.,,
and a lot more bric-a-brac from a desert
ed factory in Ogdensburg, and few rusty
old lathes and belts and other stuff from
Passaic, n. j., and had a huge sign paint
ed that stretched clear across the front
of the old iron plant.
Then the young man told the husband of
his wife's cousin that he had the chance
of his life in becoming the superintendent
and manager of the plant of the COntinen-
tai Match Company. He said he was go
ing 10 show the big Diamond Company
what opposition meant; that it never be-
fore had encountered the real thing.
Young Gould's wife's cousins husband is
Shrewsbury B. Miller, and he accepted the
position of superintendent with promises
of a glowing future before him. Having
duly placed him in charge of the pile of
junk young Gold came back to New York
to enjoy himself and watch developments
Since that time TO this the Continental
Match Company. under the able manage
ment of young Gouid's wife's cousin S
husband, has not shipped, all told, more
than five carloads of matches.
Last week Edwin thought the time was
ripe to go to Detroit again and give out an
interview regarding the glowing prospects
OF the Continental Match Company. II
was about time as the machinery was in
the last stages of uselessness and was
about to quit.
He was exceedingly glad to see the news
paper men Of Detroit. He wanted to tell
them that the plant there was to be the
nucleus of a great organization which
would combat the trust and force it TO hunt
cover.
Instead of hunting cover, the trust
hunted Gould, as he anticipated, and
agents Immediately offered to buy him
out. lie said he would sell for a cool mil
lion, but they offered only one-haff of that
amount. They finally csme to terms, and
Edwin reluctantly agreed to accept 500, 90
and a directorate in the Diamond Match
Company for what his mechanical super
inten1ent, II. @. Tracey, says costs him.
all told. less than $50 600.
The Continental Match Company's plant
in Detroit was closed down yesterday
morning, this move coming as a complete
surprise. The works were opened as usual
at a. m. but the machinery was stopped
an hour later and the half hundred en-
ployes were told that the plant had been
shut down indefinitely, The name Cont
mental Match Company" dies with the
closing OF the factory.
SO Cou.d's wife's cousins husba nd Is out
of job and he is said 10 be the most dis
gusted man in Detroit TO make matters
worse when his distant and distlngu' shes
New York relative alluded to him the last
time he was in Detroit he called him MIL