AN AMEBIC AN RAILWAY KING.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 2 August 1880, Page 2

AN AMEBIC AN RAILWAY KING.

Among the remarkable men in the United States one is said to be coming to the front of whom much more will bo heard. His name is Victor Newcomb, and he is rapidly rising to a position not unlike that held some years ago in England by Hudson, the railway king. It is believed Newcomb will have built up a fortune of two millions sterling by the time he enters his fortieth year. His field is> the purchase and combination of railway companies. He is now vice-president of the Louisville and Nashfield road, and sole owner of the undertaking. He controls, more or less, all the lines between Chicago on the North and the Gulf of Mexico on the South, and between St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans on tha West and the Atlantic Ocean. Having brought his passengers "and freight to the seaboard, it is in his steamers that they are carried to New York to Cuba; and from Charleston southward toNew Orleans Newcomb controls every port. This property comprises over 5000 miles of railway, and five or six lines of steamers ; i is worth over L 2,400,000, and does a, business of L 2,000,000 per annum. Nowcomb commenced the enterprise, and hacS largely succeeded, when the civil war interfered and stopped further progress. Another effort was then made ; then came the panic of 1874, and the father saw nothing but ruin before him. At this, juncture young Newcomb, who had bub shortly before returned from completing his education in Europe, volunteered to sell the bonds of the Louisville and Nashville railway in London. He succeeded, returned home to receive his father's dying words, and before he was entrusted, with an organisation such as no man at. his age had ever before managed. has_ bought line after line, to unite his* various iron ways, and is now making thei busiest preparations for the future.