JAY GOULD AND AMERICAN FINANCIERS.

Evening Post, Volume XIII, Issue 78, 1 April 1876, Page 4 (Supplement)

JAY GOULD AND AMERICAN FINANCIERS.

A natural result, says the correspondent of the Melbourne Argus£>of the depression of business and the timidity of. capital is the almost complete cessation of speculation on the Stock Exchange, and our stockbrokersare driverrio their .wits'; end to get up & semblance of excitement. At present a very large "part — probably a goddT deal more than half — of the transactions reported on the Exchange are, fictitious, and are meant to "rig the market," for the delusion 1 of the outside public, which, however, obstinately refuses to enter the trap. Among the. spectators who take the most conspicuous part in the manipulation of the stock market is Mr. Jay j Gould, who is to the American Exchange 1 what Baron Albert Grant is reported to have been to that of London, though with a more extensive relative influence, owing to the smaller limit of the entire field. Gould is, beyond doubt, 'the most daring of American speculators; He controls the majority of the stocks of the Union Pacific Rail way- — reaching from the Mississipi River to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and forming the chief link of the Transcontinental Railway. He has for a long time aimed to control the Western Union Telegraph Company, which owns substantially the entire telegraph system of the country, and he has-nseveral times nearly reached saticess. fie, with his former associate, James Fisk, junior — happily murdered some four years sinee — stole the Erie Railway, and after reducing it near to ruin, finally connived at an apparent opposition movement, which ousted him, but which he hoped to

control, though in this he failed, and finally had to pay 10,000,000 dols. to the new arrangement. It is now generally understood that Gould owns a major interest in the New York Tribune, formerly a powerful paper, and still one that exercises ..some influence. So you can see that he is generally regarded here as . the Mephisfopheles of the 6nancial world, and his habits quite bear .out his character. He lives almost alone in a large house on Murray-hill, the most aristocratic quarter of the town ; seldom goes dowu to the " street ;" never goes into society, or appears in public ; ;is very silent, has' no extravagant tastes, and seems to derive all his enjoyment in life from the acquisition and exercise of power and wealth in the realm of speculation. He is universally distrusted, and almost as universally despised, but so long as his power is conceded, he seems to care to make no pretension to honour, or even common honesty.