Year: 1869

The purchase Of Pixies Opera House with
the money of the Erie Railroad Company ID
the first step in grand enterprise. It is tho
initiation Of . gigantic land speculation. Fisk
and Gould, the dnanciers who run the Erie
road and several other roads, and, what IL
more important handle the millions, positive
and possible, that belong to the Erie Company,
have discovered that railroading Is tolerably
slow thing. Money earned in the gradual ac-
cretion Of legitimate trade has no charms for
their brilliant spirits. Shall they wear out the
years In transporting passengsrs-the mere
atoms Of humanity from place to place, or In
carrying butter and cheese from country to
town and from town to country Perish the
thought They will make themselves names
In our financial annals. Western roads have
made fortunes In day in the speculation Of
the prairies, and the Erie men propose to show
that the real Pelion upon Ossa Of accumulated
wealth is to be piled up by speculation on the
land that lies by the thronged streets Of this
very metropolis.


Pixies first idea was. Of course, the apprecia-
tion Of land In his neighborhood and specula-
ton therein; but that tmid spirit confessed
too early that he had gone too far from Broad
way-too far west. The Erie men saw that
nothing was too far west. Had they not made
Salamanca, with its splendidly paved thorough
fares, magnificent stores and sumptuous hotels,
a suburb Of Gotham? Truly. And here was
an unappreciated tract like Salamanca only ten
minutes from Broadway, and so they bought it.
They propose now, by a judicious combination
Of railroad and opera, to make up the short
comings Of either. They will put into the
opera business that bold spirit and those sums
ager ever yet had money enough. They have
all been ruined by that fact alone. They have
all had just enough money to lose every cent,
and they can all testify that just as their money
ran out the thing was beginning to pay. Every
manager would have succeeded if he had had
little more money. This is what Fisk and
Gould have got. They have got all the money
in the United States. If the few millions in
hand run out at any time they have only to
issue stockton millions, twenty millions, no





Aladdin was fool to either of these Who
would 20 through the laborious and disagree
able labor of rubbing IN old lamp, greasy, Of
course?


Opera run on these principles will astonish
the world, and the world will come to see.
There is the point. Patti will be brought out
Nilsson, too-and all other wonders. They
have engagements. No matter; the company
will secure them at any price and pay the few
millions Of forfeit money. But they shall not
60 to Chicago, or Cincinnati, or St. Louis. No
only to Pixies Opera House. Chicago, Cincin-
natl and st. Louis must come to them. Grand
excursions will be organized from every point
of the compass to the corner Of Eighth avenue
and Twenty third street. The Pacific Railroad
will only be tributary to this great stream Of
travel This will be the end Of the grand star
travelling system, and all the money hitherto
made by that system will come into one till.
With the world thus dumped at the corner of
Twenty-third street and Eighth avenue every
inch Of space in the neighborhood viii have an
almost fabulous value. In the days Of Laws
glory five feet of space in the. dirty little Rue
Quincampoix rented for as much as row Of
houses in any other street in Paris. This will
be the grand result in the present speculation
when the machine is in full working order
with grand attractions; not, Of course, with
the present company, which we suppose was
only taken to ali up an interval.


Vanderbilt will have to wheel into line. He
will have to come into the system in SELF
defence. His only hope now is in aetheatre.
He will perhaps buy the Academy Of Music
and that part Of Tsmmany not owned by the
other road, and make them into one tremen-
dous show. This will be better speculation
than that Of the Erie opera; for the material
to work upon IL better. The increase IN value
will be immense. just see what one little
thing did. Jerome built race course out in
westchester, and every inch Of land in its
neighborhood has been doubled or trebled in
value. II race course dropped down In o
county win do this, what may not be done by .
grand theatrical scheme In the hands OF our
vanderbilts and Fisks? The effect will
extend to the whole island. Room will
become so valuable that an apple stand on
the corner win be worth q kings ransom
unless he happens to be a railroad king, In
which case his ransom will be greater. Verify,
this phrase Of railroad kings has come to have
reality Of meaning in It. Railroad men are
our rulers, and rulers are glad enough to be
railroad men. His Imperial Majesty Of Russia
runs his own railroads; 80 does his Imperial
Majesty OF France. II Is q startling coinci-
dence that each Of these kings also runs his
own opera. Did not the great Napoleon, with
his head full Of strategy in Eastern Europe,
send his orders TO Paris for the management
Of the opera? Here are great examples. We
need no longer wonder where Fisk got his
ideas and how he found out what was neces-
- r.. Ls.v.~ IA