Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1901-12-20
TRAGEDY In TRIPLES
SMALL THINGS THAT HAVE CAUSED
GREAT DISASTERS.

A Postage stamp Caused the Ruin OF
nm English Iron KinG-Snnkruptcy
In the Mere Motion of iInnd-A
Missing Key Thut Meant Ruin.
1t was common penny postage
stamp that brought Hobart, the great
British Iron king" to his ruin. AT
the time of the Whitworth period,
when there was a big crisis in the iron
trade, he had agents in all parts of the
world who kept him posted. Some
times they telegraphcd news to him in
cipher, but thos. in England We're
nearly always instructed to write. At
that period his principal agent, who
was also his chief partner, was in
Sheffield and wrote him from there
warning him to sell out all iron inter-
ests for the time on account of the
Whitworth crisis.
Hobart had frequent fits of irritable
ty. and he had been receiving lot of
uustamped letters of no Importance on
which he had to pay double postage.
One morning in anger he gave orders
that such letters were to be returned
to the postman. The very first I'M
stamped letter received after this was
from his partner. II was rejected as
soon as it arrived.
Consequently, knowing nothing Of
the existence of the letter or the all
important private news it contained,
Hobart pledged himself next day for
more iron deals than even his mighty
credit was good for. The great drop
in prices came two days later, and
Hobart. once millionaire. was in
volved in II hopeless bankruptcy from
which he never recovered.
The mere motion of a hand ruined
Goblet & Co., one of the largest and
wealthiest engineering firms ever
known. they and an American firm
rendered bids for the building of the
great Kara bridge for the Russian
Jacob Cobbett, who was
the brain and center of the business,
spent six months in the designing and
and had all his plans ready
His bid vas accepted, and material
was bought in enormous quantities. \
time limit had been set both for the
commencement and finish, and Goblet
was pcrfa,.ting his plans and making
sure of tie smallest details, with all
he formula spread out on the table
before HIM, when he stretched out his
land, overturned an inkpot and drown
ID the mont important of the papers in
/ black sea.
Goblet had n poor memory. In fe- !
'er of anxiety he tried TO reconstruct !
his plans from stray notes. II was i'm
possible. and he called on the Russian /
for more time Time was
efuscd, and Russia repudiatcd the con- ,
ract on tue ground of delay. rs the .
greement allowed, Goblet could not .
ret his week through in time, and the /
Yankee firm, which new advanced n !
heaper tender with cut and dried .
'lans, got the job. The loss drove Cob /
ett & Co. To bankruptcy, and the great
laura bridge in Russia is American
,ullt
Something similar, but still more ro-
ess that wrecked the career of the
reat railway contractor, Purbeck
ones. a millionaire in property and
unds, he had undertaken the contract
, build the Maiwar line, in central In
la, aud staked all he had. Security
'as necessary, however. and he was
OuDd to deliver by May Q, 1891. sufti-
lent quantity of negotiable bonds, etc,
, cover loss by the railway syndicate.
his sum amounted to over f2,000, 900,
nd even Purbeck Jones found it hard
} raise such Il sum, but his credit OBJ
lined it for him, and he deposited his
in a great safe at his Offices
/ Lombard street, preferring that to
lfe deposit.
1t was not till the morning that the
ldian mail went off that he arrived to
spatch the securities under special
lard to India. When he arrived. to his
tier dismay he found he had left the
nys of the safe behind. They were in
IS country place, 1arwood. just out
de Carlisle. and to get them in time to
itch the mail was impossible. If he
Used the mail his time limit for the
'posit would lapse. He sent TO the
fcmalers for expert workmCn and
fered them $500 each if they could
'eak the safe open within two hours.
hey could not do it, and Purbeck !
mes was ruined, for the railway syn
cate refused him an extension of
me- and the loss of the contract
hich was the biggest any single man
ID ever undertaken, made him hope {
ssly bankrupt. He died in a lunatic I
YUM not very long after.-London
alcgraph.
S-.Y-o o-1 c.,.o