Chapter II: Across the Atlantic (1)

IT is in America, as was to be expected, that rise more quickly than in any other country. Every one is ambitious, and there he realises the fact that no position is beyond his power if he will but work for it. Franklin was a printer’s boy, General Putnam was a farmer, Roger Sherman was a shoemaker, and Andrew Jackson was a poor boy, who worked his way up from the humblest position; Patrick Henry, the great American orator, was a country tavern-keeper; Abraham Lincoln was equally low placed in his start in life. But even in America it is hard work to make a fortune. Niorse, an American artist, but a better chemist and mechanician than a painter, thought out the magnetic telegraph on a Havre packet-ship, but met the common fate of inventors. He struggled for years with poverty and a thousand difficulties. He failed to interest capitalists. At last, when he was yielding to despair, and meditated suicide, on the last night of a session of Congress, at midnight, when the Appropriation Bill was being rushed through, he got an appropriation of £6,000 for an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore; then success, rewards, honours, titles of nobility, gold medals, and an immense fortune. The American inventor of the sewing machine had similar misfortune, and then as great a success.

“There are two kinds of men and two kinds of business in New York,” says an American author. The old-school merchants of New York are few; their ranks are thinning every day. They were distinguished for probity and honour; they took time to make a fortune. Their success proved that business success and mercantile honour were a good capital. Their colossal fortunes and enduring fame prove that, to be successful, men need not be mean, or false, or dishonest. When John Jacob Astor was a leading merchant in Now York, there were few who could buy goods by the cargo. A large dealer in tea, knowing that few merchants could outbid him, or purchase a cargo, concluded to buy a whole shipload that had just arrived, and was offered at auction. He had nobody to compete with, and he expected to have everything his own way. Just before the sale commenced, to his consternation he saw Mr. Astor walking slowly down the wharf. He went to meet him, and said—“Mr. Astor, I am sorry to meet you here this morning; if you will go to your counting-room, and stay till after the sale, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.” Without thinking much about it, Mr. Astor consented, turned on his heel, and said—“Send round the cheque.” He lost money, but he kept his word. When the lease for Astor House was nearly out, some parties from Boston tried to hire it over the heads of the then tenants. In a private interview with Mr. Astor, they wanted to know his terms. He replied, “I will consult Mr. Stetson (the tenant), and let you know.” To do that was, as they were well aware, to defeat the object they had in view. The old New York merchant never gave a guarantee as to the genuineness of the article he sold. It were needless to ask it.

In New York, in Boston, and elsewhere, the rule of prosperity is plain. One of the best-known presidents of a New York bank began his career by blacking boots: he came to New York a penniless lad, and sought employment at a store. “What can you do?” said the merchant. “I can do anything,” replied the boy. “Take these boots and black them.” He did so, and he blacked them well, and did everything else well.

Alexander Stewart (when alive, reputed to be the richest man in the world) was born in Ireland, came young to New York, and, with a little money that was left him by a relative in Ireland, took a small shop. He kept in it from fourteen to eighteen hours a day. He was his own errand-boy, porter, book-keeper, and salesman. He lived over his store, and, for a time, one room served as kitchen, bedroom, and parlour. Mr. Stewart began business when merchants relied on themselves, when banks gave little aid, when traders made money out of their customers, not out of their creditors. One day, while doing business in this little store, a note became due which he was unable to pay. The banks were unfriendly, and his friends, as is always the case when you want to borrow, were peculiarly hard up. Resolving not to be dishonoured, he met the crisis boldly. He made up his mind never to be in such a fix again. He marked every article in his shop below cost price; he flooded the city with hand-hills; they were everywhere—in basements, shops, steamboats, hotels, and cars, promised everybody a bargain, and took New York by storm. The little shop was crowded. Mr. Stewart presided in person. He said but little, offered his goods, and took the cash, all attempts to beat him down he quietly pointed to the price plainly written on each package. He had hardly time to eat or sleep; everyone came and bought, and when they got home customers were delighted to find that they were not cheated, but that they had secured a real bargain. Long before the time named for closing the sale in the hand-bill, the whole store was cleaned out, and every article sold for cash. The troublesome note was paid, and a handsome balance left over. For the future, he resolved to trade no more on credit. The market was dull, times were bad, cash was scarce; he would buy on his own terms the best of goods, and thus he laid down the foundation of a fortune which, long before he died, was reckoned at 30,000,000 dols. 1836, an American writer thus described his mode of doing business:—“Though Mr. Stewart sells goods on credit, as do other merchants, he buys solely for cash. If he takes a note, instead of getting it discounted at a bank, he throws it into a safe and lets it mature. It does not enter into his business, and the non-payment of it does not disturb him. He selects the style of carpet he wants, buys every yard made by the manufacturer, and pays cash. He monopolises high-priced laces, sells costly goods, furs, and gloves, and compels the fashionable world to pay him tribute. Whether he sells a first-rate or a fourth-rate article, the customer gets what he bargained for. A lady on a journey, who passes a couple of days in the city, can find every article that she wants for her wardrobe at a reasonable price. She can have the goods made up in any style, and sent to her house at a given hour, for the opera or ball, or for travel. Mr. Stewart will take a contract for the complete outfit of a steamship; furnish the carpets, mirrors, chandeliers, china, silver-ware, cutlery, mattresses, linen, blankets, napkins, with every article needed, in every style demanded. He can defy competition. He buys from the manufacturer at the lowest cash price; he presents the original bills, charging only a small commission. The parties have no trouble; the articles are of the first class. They save from ten to twenty per cent., and the small commission pays Stewart handsomely. He furnishes hotels and churches in the same manner; as easily he could supply the army and navy. He attends personally to his business. He is down early, and remains late; those who pass through the Broadway at the small hours may see the light burning brightly from the working-room of the marble palace. He remains till the day’s work is done and everything squared up. He knows what is in the store, and not a package escapes his eye. He sells readily, without consulting books, invoice, or salesmen. He has partners, but they are partners only in the profits. He can buy and sell as he will, and holds the absolute management of the concern in his own hands.”

Who has not heard of the Harpers of New York, whose publishing house in Franklin Square was, and it may be is, the largest of the kind in the world; as they do all the business connected with the publication of a book under one roof. In 1810, James Harper left his rural home on Long Island, to become a printer. His parents were devout Methodists. His mother was a woman of rare gifts. She embraced him on his departure, and bade him never forget the altar of his God, his home, or that he had good blood in his veins. In his new office all the mean and servile work was put upon the printer’s devil, as he was called. At that time Franklin Square was inhabited by genteel people—wealthy merchants; and poor James Harper’s appearance attracted a good deal of unpleasant comment. His clothes, made in the old homestead, were coarse in material, and unfashionable in cut. The young swells made fun of the poor lad. They shouted to him across the streets—“Did your coat come from Paris?” “Give us a card to your tailor.” “Jim, what did your mother give a yard for your broadcloth?” Sometimes, in their insolence, the fellows came near, and, under pretence of feeling the fineness of the cloth, would give an unpleasant nip. The lad had a hard life of it; but he resolved not to be imposed upon. One day, as he was doing some menial work, he was attacked by one of his tormentors, who asked him for his card. He turned on his assailant, having deliberately set down a pail that he was carrying, kicked him severely, and said, “That’s my card; take good care of it. When I am out of my time, and set up for myself, and you need employment—as you will—come to me and I will give you work.” Forty-one years after, when Mr. Harper’s establishment was known throughout all the land—after he had borne the highest municipal honours of the city, and had become one of the wealthiest men in New York—the person who had received the card came to Mr. James Harper’s establishment, and asked for employment, claiming it on the ground that he had kept the card given him forty-one years before. With great fidelity James served out his time. His master was pleased with him. In a patronising way he told him, when he was free, he should never want for employment. James rather surprised his old master by informing him that he intended to set up for himself; that he had already engaged to do a job, and that all he wanted was a certificate from his master that he was worthy to be trusted with a book. In a small room in Dover Street, James, and his brother John, began their work as printers. Their first job was 2,000 volumes of “Seneca’s Morals.” Their second book laid the foundation of their fortune. The Harpers had agreed to stereotype an edition of the Prayer-book for the Episcopal Society of New York. Stereotyping was in a crude state, and the work was roughly done. When the Harpers took the contract, they intended to have it done at some one of the establishments in the city. They found that it would cost them more than they were to receive. They resolved to learn the art, and do the work themselves. It was a slow and difficult labour, but it was accomplished. It was pronounced the best piece of stereotyping ever seen in New York. It put the firm at the head of the business. It was found to be industrious, honourable, and reliable. In six years it became the great printing-house of New York. Other brothers joined the firm of Harper Brothers. Besides personal attention to business, the brothers exercised great economy in their personal and domestic expenses; one thousand dollars was what it cost the brothers each to live for the first ten years of their business life. As regarded their _employés_, the utmost care was taken. The liberal, genial, honourable spirit of the proprietors prompted them to pay the best wages, and secure the best talent. Those who entered the house, seldom or never left it. Boys became men, and remained there as _employés_ all the same.

In New York the love of Mammon finds no small place even in sanctified breasts. The author of “Sunshine and Shade,” in New York, says—“Among the most excited in the stock-market are men who profess to be clergymen. One of this class realised a snug little fortune of 80,000 dollars in his speculations. He did not want to be known in the matter. Daily he laid his funds on the broker’s desk. If anything was realised it was taken quietly away. The broker, tired of doing business on the sly, advised the customer, if the thing was distasteful to him, or he was ashamed openly to be in business, he had better retire from Wall Street.” Men of this class often have a nominal charge. They affect to have some mission, for which they collect money; they roam about among our benevolent institutions, visit prisons or penitentiaries—wherever they can get a chance to talk, to the great disgust of regular missionaries, and the horror of superintendents. They can be easily known by white cravats, sanctified looks, and the peculiar unction of their whine. “One man,” continues the writer in question, “especially illustrates the gentlemen of the cloth who are familiar with stocks. His name appears in the Sunday notices as the minister of an up-town church; down town he is known as a speculator. His place of worship is a little house built in his yard. It is not as long or as wide as the room in which he writes his sermons. The pastor is a speculator; his church is his capital, and on ’Change Rev. pays well. He has controlled and abandoned half-a-dozen churches. He went over to London, made a written contract with Mr. Spurgeon, the celebrated preacher, by which the latter was to visit America. It bound Spurgeon to give a certain number of lectures in the principal cities of the land. Tickets were to be issued to admit to the services. One-half of the proceeds Spurgeon was to take with him to London to build his tabernacle, the other half was to be left in the hands of the gentleman who brought him over and engineered him through. The contract, coming to light, produced a great commotion, and Mr. Spurgeon declined to fulfil it. The war breaking out, this clerical gentleman tried his hand at a horse contract. He approached a general of high position, and said he was a poor minister, times were hard, and he wanted to make a little money; would the general give him a contract? One was placed in his hands for the purchase of a number of horses. The minister sold the contract, and made a handsome thing of it; the government was cheated. A committee of Congress, in looking up frauds in the city, turned up this contract. In a report to Congress, the general and the minister were mentioned in no complimentary terms. While these transactions were going on in New York, the general was in the field where the battle was the thickest, maintaining the honour of the flag. The report in which his name was dishonourably mentioned reached him. His indignation was aroused. He sent a letter to the speculating preacher, sharp as the point of his sword. He told him if he did not clear him in every way from all dishonourable connection in the transaction complained of, he would shoot him in the street as soon as he returned to New York. The frightened minister made haste to make the demanded reparation.” Happily for the credit of America, the author already referred to says, “Such men are held in as light esteem by the respectable clergy of the city, and by the honourable men of their own denomination, as they are by the speculators whom they attempt to imitate.”

What a contrast to such contemptible men was John Jacob Astor, who, at the age of twenty, left his German home, resolving to seek a fortune in the New World. He was a poor uneducated boy, and he trudged on foot from his home to the seaport whence he was to sail. He was educated by his mother. His school-books were his Bible and Prayer-book, and these he read and pondered over to the last hour of his life. When he left home, a small bundle contained all his worldly possessions. He had money enough, for a common steerage passage—that was all. He landed penniless on American soil. As he left his native village, he paused and cast a lingering, loving look behind. As he stood under the linden tree he said, “I will be honest; I will be industrious; I will never gamble.” He kept these resolutions till the day of his death. He sailed from London for America in 1783. In the steerage he made the acquaintance of a furrier, which was the means of his introduction to a business by which he made millions. All sorts of stories are circulated about the early career of Mr. Astor. It was said that he commenced by trading in apples and pea-nuts. He took with him seven flutes, from his brother’s manufactory in London; these he sold, and invented the proceeds in furs. He went steadily to work to learn the trade for himself: he was frugal, industrious, and early exhibited great tact in trade. He was accustomed to say, later in life, that the only hard step in making his fortune was in the accumulation of the first thousand dollars. He possessed marked executive ability. He was quick in his perceptions. He came rapidly to his conclusions. He made a bargain, or rejected it at once. In his very earliest transactions he displayed the same characteristics which marked him in maturer life. He made distinct contracts, and adhered to them with inflexible purpose. He founded the American Fur Company, in which he had shares, and by means of which he amassed a fortune of over 50,000 dollars. His son succeeded in his father’s business, and in his father’s ability for acquiring money. His habits were very simple, and mode of life uniform.

Next to Astor, perhaps, in America, we are most familiar with the name of Commodore Vanderbilt, one of the self-made millionaires of the city of New York. He began life a penniless boy, and took to the water early. His first adventure was rowing a boat from Staten Island to the city. He took command of a North River steamboat when quite young, and was distinguished at the start for his resolute, indomitable, and daring will. He began his moneyed success by chartering steamboats, and running opposition to all the old lines up the North River, up the East River, up the Connecticut—everywhere. Making a little money, he invested it in stocks which were available in cash, and always ready for a bargain. Honourable in trade, prompt, firm, and reliable, he was decided in his business, and could drive as hard a bargain as any man in the city. His custom was to conduct his business on cash principles, and never to allow a Saturday night to close without every man in his employ getting his money. If anybody was about to fail, wanted money, had a bargain to offer, he knew where to call. Nothing came amiss—a load of timber, coal, or cordage, a cargo of a ship, or a stock of goods in a factory, glass-ware, merchandise, or clothing—the commodore was sure to find a use for them. A writer, in 1868, thus describes him:—“From nine to eleven the commodore is in his up-town office; at one in his down-town office. Between these hours he visits the Harlem and Hudson River stations. He is now nearly eighty years of age. He it as erect as a warrior; he is tall, very slim, genteel in his make-up, with a fine presence, hair white as the driven snow, and comes up to one’s idea of a fine merchant of the olden time. He is one of the shrewdest merchants, prompt and decided. In one of the down-town mansions, where the aristocracy used to reside, he has his place of business. He drives down through Broadway in his buggy, drawn by his favourite horse, celebrated for his white feet, one of the fleetest in the city, and which no money can buy. His office consists of a single room, quite large, well-furnished, and adorned with pictures of favourite steamers and ferry-boats. The entrance to the office is through a narrow hall-way, which is made an outer room for his confidential clerk. He sees personally all who call, rising to greet the comer, and seldom sits till the business is discharged, and the visitor gone. But for this he would be overrun and bored to death. His long connection with steamboats and shipping brings to him men from all parts of the world who have patents, inventions, and improvements, and who wish his endorsement. II a man has anything to sell he settles the contract in a very few words. The visitor addresses the commodore, and says. ‘I have a stock of goods for sale; what will you give?’ A half-dozen sharp inquiries are made, and a price named. The seller demurs, announcing that such a price would ruin him. ‘I don’t want your goods. What did you come here for if you did not want to sell? If you can get more for your goods, go and get it.’ Not a moment of time will be lost, not a cent more be offered; and if the man leaves, with the hope of getting a better price, and returns to take the first offer, he will probably not sell the goods at all.”

Turning from steamboats, Mr. Vanderbilt long ago became interested in railroads. In this line, so great was his success that he could control the market. “An attempt,” says an American writer, “was made some time since to break him down by cornering the stock.” He wanted to consolidate the Harlem Road with the Hudson. Enough of the legislature was supposed to have been secured to carry the measure. The parties who had agreed to pass the bill intended to play foul. Besides this, they thought they would indulge in a little railroad speculation. They sold Harlem, to be delivered at a future day, right and left. These men let their friends into the secret, and allowed them to speculate. Clear on to Chicago, there was hardly a railroad man who was not selling Harlem short. The expected consolidation ran the stock up; the failure of the project would, of course, run it down. A few days before the vote was taken some friends called upon Commodore Vanderbilt, and gave him proof that a conspiracy existed to ruin him, if possible, in the matter of consolidation. He took all the funds he could command, and, with the aid of his friends, bought all the Harlem stock that could be found, and locked it up safe in his desk. True to the report, the bill was rejected. The men who had pledged themselves to vote for it, openly and unblushingly voted against it. They waited anxiously for the next morning, when they expected their fortunes would be made by the fall of Harlem. But it did not fall. To the surprise of everybody, the first day it remained stationary; then it began to rise steadily, to the consternation and terror of speculators. There was no stock to be had at any price. Men were ruined on the right hand and on the left. Fortunes were swept away, and the cry of the wounded was heard up and down the Central Road. An eminent railway man, near Albany, worth quite a pretty fortune, who confidently expected to make 50,000 dollars by the operation, became penniless. One of the sharpest and most successful operators in New York lost over 200,000 dollars, which he refused to pay on the ground of conspiracy. His name was immediately stricken from the Stock board, which brought him to his senses. He subsequently settled, but thousands were ruined. Vanderbilt, however, made enough money out of this attempt to ruin him, to pay for all the stock he owned in the Harlem Road. Not satisfied with his achievements on the land and on the American rivers, Mr. Vanderbilt resolved to try the ocean. He built a fine steamer at his own cost, and equipped her completely. The Collins line was then in its glory. Mr. Collins, with his fine fleet of steamers, and his subsidy from the government, was greatly elated, and very imperious. It was quite difficult to approach him. Any day, on the arrival of a steamer, he could be seen pacing the deck, the crowd falling back and making space for the head of the important personage. One of his ships was lost; Vanderbilt applied to Collins to allow his steamer to take the place vacant on the line for a time; he promised to make no claim for the subsidy, and to take off his ship as soon as Collins built one to take her place. Collins refused to do this: he felt afraid if Vanderbilt got his foot into this ocean business, he would get in his whole body; if Vanderbilt could run an ocean-steamer without subsidy, government would require Collins to do it; he saw only mischief any way. He not only refused, but refused very curtly. In the sharp Doric way that Vanderbilt had of speaking when he is angry, he told Collins that he would run his line off the ocean, if it took all of his own fortune and the years of his life to do it. He commenced his opposition in a manner that made it irresistible, and a work of short duration. He offered the government to carry the mails, for a term of years, without a dollar’s cost to the nation; he offered to bind himself, under the heaviest bonds the government could exact, to perform this service for a term of years, more promptly and faithfully than it had been ever done before. His well-known business tact and energy were conceded. His ability to do what he said, nobody could deny; his proposition was not only laid before the members of Congress, but pressed home by a hundred agencies that he employed. The subsidy was withdrawn; Collins became a bankrupt; his splendid fleet of steamers, the finest the world had ever seen, were moored at the wharves, where they laid rotting. Had Collins conceded to Vanderbilt’s wishes, or divided with him the business on the ocean, the Collins’ line not only would have been a fact to-day, but would have been as prosperous as the Cunard line.

When the rebellion broke out, the navy was in a feeble condition; every ship in the south was pressed into the rebel service. The men-of-war at Norfolk were burned. At Annapolis they were mutilated and made unfit for service. The efficient portion of the navy was cruising in foreign seas, beyond recall. The need of ships of war and gun-boats was painfully apparent. The steam-ship _Vanderbilt_ was the finest and fleetest vessel that ever floated in American waters. Her owner fitted her up as a man-of-war at his own expense, and fully equipped her. He then offered her for sale to government at a reasonable price. Mr. Vanderbilt found that there were certain men, standing between the government and the purchase, who insisted on a profit on every vessel that the government bought. He refused to pay the black-mail that was exacted of him if his vessel became the property of the nation. He was told that, unless he acceded to these demands, he could not sell his ship. Detesting the conduct of the men, who, pretending to be patriots, were making money out of the necessities of the nation, he proceeded at once to Washington, and presented the _Vanderbilt_, with all her equipments, as a free gift to the nation.

There were few men who attended more closely to business than the late Mr. Vanderbilt; and, as an American writer remarked of him a few years before his death, “financially he was ready for the last great change.” At that time his property was estimated at about thirty millions of dollars. He was very liberal where he took an interest; but very fitful in his charities. He often not only subscribed liberally, but compelled all his friends to do the same. He was prompt, sharp, decisive in his manner of doing business; he was punctual in his engagements to the minute; he was very intelligent and well-informed, and, in commercial and national affairs, had no rival in shrewdness and good judgment. He was affable, assumed no airs, and was pleasant and genial as a companion; and when time began to tell on his iron frame, and he began to feel the decrepitude of age, he was not unmindful of its admonitions, and entered into no new speculations; for he wished to leave no unfinished business to his children, amongst whom his large property—the results of favourable endeavour and successful financial operations—was divided.

In the great cities of America—in such centres as Chicago and New York—the men who make the most show of wealth, who live in the finest houses, drive the best horses, give the grandest parties, were many of them grooms, coachmen, hotel porters, boot-blacks, news-boys, printers’ devils, porters, and coal-heavers, who have risen from the lower walks of life, and who left their respective homes, a few years ago, with all their worldly wealth in the crown of their hat, or tied up in a pocket-handkerchief. They did the hard work of the office, swept out the stores, made the fires, used the marking-pot, were kicked and cuffed about, and suffered every hardship. The men who made New York what it was were men of the old school; they were celebrated for their courtesy and integrity; they came from the humblest walks of life—from the plough and anvil, from the lapstone and printing-case, from the farm and quarry. They worked their way up, as Daniel worked his, from the position of a slave to Prime Minister of Babylon. Some of them went from their stores to compete with the ablest statesmen in the world; they were the fathers and founders of the American nation. These old schoolmen ate not a bit of idle bread; they were content with their small store and pine-desk; they owned their own goods, and were their own cashiers, salesmen, clerks, and porters; they worked sixteen hours a day, and so became millionaires. They would as soon have committed forgery as be mean and unjust in trade; they made their wealth in business, and not in fraudulent failures; they secured their fortunes out of their customers, and not out of their creditors.—Not so, Young America! An American writer says:—“He must make a dash. He begins with a brown-stone store, filled with goods, for which he has paid nothing; marries a dashing _belle_; delegates all the business that he can to others; lives in style, and spends his money before he gets it; keeps his fast horse, and other appendages equally fast; is much at the club-room, and in billiard or kindred saloons; speaks of his father as ‘the old governor,’ and of his mother as ‘the old woman;’ and, finally, becomes porter to his clerk, and lackey to his salesman. Beginning where his father left off, he leaves off where his father began.”

Let us give a few more American illustrations of the way to wealth, Boston has the honour of originating the express companies of America. One morning a man took the East Boston ferry, bound for Salem, over the Eastern Railroad. He held in his hand a small trunk, trimmed with red morocco, and fastened with red nails. The trunk contained a few notes which the person was to collect; a small sum of money he was to pay; and a few commissions he was to execute. “These,” says an American newspaper, “were the tangible things in the trunk. Besides these notes, money, and orders, that little trunk, which a child might have carried, contained the germ of the express business of the land, whose agencies, untiring as the sun, are almost as regular.” Alvin Adams—for that is and was the name of the individual referred to—commenced the express business, as an experiment, between New York and Boston in 1840. He had no business, no customers, and no money. He shrewdly saw the coming greatness of his calling, though for one year it was carried on in the smallest possible way. He had indomitable energy; his integrity was without a question; he gained slowly on the confidence of the community, and closed the year with a future of success before him. In 1854, the business was transformed into a joint-stock company, and it now stretches out its arms to all the towns and villages in the land. It is an express company for merchandise, from a bundle to a ship-load. The amount of money received and disbursed every day exceeds that of any bank in the nation. It collects and pays out the smallest sum, and from that to a large waggon loaded with money, and drawn by three horses. During the war, the company rendered efficient service to the government: in time of peril or panic, when the property of the army was abandoned or sacrificed, it bore away cart-loads of money by its coolness and courage, and saved millions to the Treasury. The company opened a department expressly to carry money from the private soldiers to their families. For a very small sum, funds were taken from the soldier and delivered to his friends in any part of the land. On several occasions, the transport department in the army being in utter confusion, application was made to the Adams’ Express Company for relief.

Jacob Little originated the dashing, daring style of business in stocks, by which fortunes are made and lost in a single day. In 1817, he came to New York, and entered the store of Jacob Barker, who was at that time the shrewdest merchant in the city. In 1822, he opened an office in a small basement in Wall Street. Caution, self-reliance, integrity, and a far-sightedness beyond his years, marked his early career. For twelve years he worked in his little den as few men work. His ambition was to hold the foremost place in Wall Street. Eighteen hours a day he devoted to business; twelve hours to his office. His evenings he spent in visiting retail houses, to purchase uncurrent money; he executed all orders committed to him with fidelity; he opened a correspondence with leading bankers in all the principal cities from New York to New Orleans. For twelve years Mr. Little was at the head of his business; he was the Great Bear of Wall Street; his mode of business enabled him to accumulate an enormous fortune; and he held on to his system till it beat him down, as it had done many a strong man before.

“For more than a quarter of a century,” writes the author of “Sunshine and Shadow,” in New York, “Mr. Little’s office, in the Old Exchange Buildings, was the centre of daring gigantic speculations. On ’Change his tread was that of a king. He could sway and disturb the street when he pleased. He was rapid and prompt in his dealings, and his purchases were usually made with great judgment. He had unusual foresight, which, at times, seemed to amount to defiance. He controlled so large an amount of stock, that he was called the Napoleon of the Board. When capitalists regarded railways with distrust, he put himself at the head of the railroad movement. He comprehended the profit to be derived from their construction. In this way he rolled up an immense fortune, and was known everywhere as the railway king. He was the first to discover when the business was overdone, and immediately changed his course. At the time the Erie was a favourite stock, and selling at par, Mr. Little threw himself against the street. He contracted to sell a large amount of this stock, to be delivered at a future day. His rivals in Wall Street, anxious to floor him, formed a combination. They took all the contracts he offered; bought up all the new stock, and placed everything out of Mr. Little’s reach, making it, as they thought, impossible for him to carry out his contracts. His ruin seemed inevitable, as his rivals had both his contracts and his stock. If Mr. Little saw the way out of his trouble, he kept his own secrets; asked no advice; solicited no accommodation. The morning dawned when the stock would have to be delivered, or the Great Bear of Wall Street would have to break. He came down to his office that morning, self-reliant and calm, as usual. He said nothing about his business or his prospects. At one o’clock he entered the office of the Erie Company. He presented certain certificates of indebtedness which had been issued by the corporation. By those certificates the company had covenanted to issue stock in exchange. That stock Mr. Little demanded. Nothing could be done but to comply. With that stock he met his contract, floored the conspirators, and triumphed.”

Reverses, so common to all who attempt the treacherous sea of speculation, at length overtook Mr. Little. Walking from Wall Street with a friend one day, they passed through Union Square, then the abode of the wealthiest people of New York. Looking at the rows of elegant houses, Mr. Little remarked—“I have lost money enough to-day to buy the whole square. Yes,” he added, “and half the people in it.” Three times he became bankrupt; and what was then regarded as a colossal fortune, was, in each instance, swept away. From each failure he recovered, and paid his debts in full. It was a common remark among the capitalists, that “Jacob Little’s suspended papers were better than the cheques of most men.” The whole man inspired confidence. He was retiring in his manner, and quite diffident, except in business. He was generous as a creditor. If a man could not meet his contracts, and Mr. Little was satisfied that he was honest, he never pressed him. After his first suspension, though legally free, he paid every creditor in full, though it took nearly a million of dollars. His charities were large and unostentatious. The Southern rebellion, alas! swept away his remaining fortune, and he died poor and resigned in the bosom of his family. His last words were—“I am going up. Who will go with me?”

We must not omit a name from this chapter, well known all the world over—that of James Bennett, the founder of what is still a power, the _New York Herald_. Scotland was the birth-place of Bennett. He was reared under the shadow of Gordon Castle. His parents were Roman Catholics, and he was trained in their religion. Every Saturday night the family assembled for religious service. James was kept at school till he was fifteen years of age, and he then entered a Roman Catholic seminary at Aberdeen, his parents intending him for the ministry. He pursued his studies, on the banks of the Dee, for three years, and then threw up his studies, and abandoned his collegiate career. The memoirs of Benjamin Franklin impressed him greatly, and he felt an earnest desire to visit America, and the home of Franklin, and he landed there in 1819. At Portland he opened a school as teacher, and thence he moved to Boston. He was charmed with all he saw in the city and vicinity; he hunted up every memorial of Franklin that could be found; he examined all the relics of the Revolution, and visited the places made memorable in the struggle with Great Britain; but he was poor, and well-nigh discouraged. He walked the common, without money, hungry, and without friends. In his darkest hour he found a New York shilling, and from that hour his fortune began to mend. He obtained a position at Boston as proof reader, and displayed his ability as a writer, both in prose and verse. In 1822, he came to New York, and immediately connected himself with the press, for which he had a decided taste. He was not dainty in his work; he took everything that was offered him. He was industrious, sober, frugal, of great tact, and displayed marked ability. He soon obtained a position on the _Charleston Courier_ as translator of Spanish-American papers. He prepared other articles for the _Courier_, many of which were in verse. His style was sharp, racy, and energetic. In 1825, he became proprietor of the _New York Courier_ by purchase. It was a Sunday paper; but not a success. In 1826, he became associate editor of the _National Advocate_, a democratic paper. Leaving that, he became associate editor of the _Inquirer_, conducted by Mr. Noah; he was also a member of the Tammany Society, and a warm partisan. During the session of Congress, Mr. Bennett was at the capital writing for his paper; and while at that post, a fusion was effected between the _Courier_ and the _Inquirer_. Again, he had to leave the paper on account of a difference between him and the editor as regarded the bank. At this time he turned his attention to the New York press, which was then seriously behind the age. He felt that it was not what was demanded, and resolved to establish a paper that should realise his idea of a metropolitan journal. He had no capital; no rich friends to back him; nothing but his pluck, ability, and indomitable resolution. On the 6th of May, 1835, the _New York Herald_ made its appearance. It was a small penny paper. Mr. Bennett was editor, reporter, and correspondent; he collected the city news, and wrote the money articles; he resolved to make the financial feature of his paper a marked one; he owed nothing to the Stock Board. If he was poor, he was not in debt; he did not dabble in stocks; he had no interest in the bulls and bears; he could pitch into the bankers and stock-jobbers as he pleased, as he had no interest one way or the other. He worked hard, he rose early, was temperate and frugal, and seemed to live only for his paper. He was his own compositor and errand-boy; collected his own news, mailed his papers, kept his accounts, and he grew rich. His marble palace was the most complete newspaper establishment in the world. Before the _Herald_ buildings were completed, and while he was making a savage attack on the national banks, he was waited upon by the president of one of them, who said to him—“Mr. Bennett, we know that you are at great expense in erecting this building, besides carrying on this immense business. If you want any accommodation, you can have it at our bank.” Mr. Bennett replied—“Before I purchased the land, or began to build, I had, on deposit, 250,000 dollars in the Chemical Bank. There is not a dollar due on the _Herald_ buildings that I cannot pay. I would pay off the mortgage to-morrow if the mortgagee would allow me to. When the building is open, I shall not owe a dollar to any man if I am allowed to pay. I owe nothing that I cannot discharge in an hour. I have not touched one dollar of the money on deposit in the bank; and while that remains I need no accommodation.” One secret of his success is soon told—“He can command the best talent in the world for his paper. He pays liberally for fresh news, of which he has the exclusive use. If a pilot runs a steamer hard, or an engineer puts extra speed on his locomotive, they know that they will be well paid for it at the _Herald_ office, for its owner does not higgle about the price. When news of the loss of Collins’ steamer was brought to the city, late on a Saturday night, the messenger came direct to the _Herald_ office. The price demanded was paid; but the messenger was feasted and confined in the building until the city was flooded with extra Sunday morning copies. The _attachés_ of the _Herald_ are found in every part of the civilised world; they take their way where heroes fear to travel. If in anything they are outdone, outrun, outwritten, if earlier and fresher news is allowed to appear, a sharp, pungent letter is written, either discharging the writer, or sending him home. During the war, the _Herald_ establishment at Washington was a curiosity. The place was as busy as the War Department. Foaming horses came in from all quarters, ridden by bespattered letter-carriers. Saddled horses were tied in front of the door like the head-quarters of a general. The wires were controlled to convey the latest news from every section to the last moment of the paper going to press. Mr. Bennett is a fine illustration (this was written, of course, in his lifetime) of what America can do for a penniless boy, and what a penniless boy can do for himself, if he has talent, pluck, character, and industry. In the conflict of interest, and in the heat of rivalry, it is difficult to estimate a man rightly. In coming times, Mr. Bennett will take his place in that galaxy of noble names who have achieved their own position, been architects of their own fortune, and left an enduring mark upon the age in which they lived.”

Horace Greeley had an origin as humble, and a fight as hard as Mr. Bennett. He was born in New Hampshire, and, from his earliest years, was fond of study. The father had to move to a new settlement; and here, as little was to be done at home, after breakfast the home was left to take care of itself; away went the family—father, mother, boys, girls, and oxen—to work together. In early life the lad gave proof that the Yankee element was strong in him. In the first place, he was always doing something—and he had always something to sell. He saved nuts, and exchanged them, at the store, for the articles he wanted to purchase; he would hack away, hours at a time, at a pitch-pine stump, the roots of which are as inflammable as pitch itself, and, tying up the roots in little bundles, and the little bundles into one large one, he would take the load to the store, and sell it for firewood. His favourite out-door sport, too, at Westhaven, was bee-hunting, which is not only an agreeable and exciting pastime, but occasionally rewards the hunter with a prodigious mass of honey: as much as 150lbs. have frequently been obtained from a single tree. This was profitable sport, and Horace liked it amazingly; his share of the honey generally found its way to the store. By these, and other expedients, the boy always managed to have a little money. When he started, as an apprentice, to learn the printing-trade, he packed up his wardrobe in a small pocket-handkerchief—and, small as it was, it would have held more—for the proprietor had never more than two shirts and one change of clothing at the same time, till he was of age. “If ever there was a self-made man,” wrote an old friend, “this same Horace Greeley is one; for he had neither wealthy nor influential friends, collegiate or academic education, or anything to aid him in the world, save his own natural good sense, an unconquerable love of study, and a determination to win his way by his own efforts. He had, moreover, a natural aptitude for arithmetical calculation, and could easily surpass, in his boyhood, most persons of his age in the facility and accuracy of his demonstrations and his knowledge of grammar. He early learned to observe and remember political statistics, and the leading men and measures of the political parties; the various and multitudinous candidates for governor and Congress, not only in a single State, but in many; and, finally, in all the States; together with the taxation of, and vote of this and that, and the other Congressional districts (why democrat and what not), at all manner of elections. These things he rapidly and easily mastered, and treasured in his capacious memory, till, we venture to say, he has few, if any, equals at this time, in this particular department, in this or any other country.” After Greeley had served his apprenticeship, he came to New York, with ten dollars in his pocket, a bundle on his back, and a stick. It was hard work for him to find a job; but, at length, he was taken into a newspaper-office. After a time he joined in a speculation which was to give New York a penny paper; and, in conjunction with his partner, Mr. Story, went on printing after the paper in question had ceased to exist. He then started the _New Yorker_, having, in the meanwhile, abandoned the use of stimulants, and become a vegetarian. After more or less editorial work, more or less profitable, Greeley started the _New York Tribune_, which, from the first, was a success.

Another of New York’s leading men was Daniel Drew. His father died when he was fifteen years of age, and he came to New York to seek his fortune. Resolved to do something, and having nothing better to do, he became a soldier as a substitute for another. Then he took to stock-keeping, and droves of over 2,000 cattle crossed the Alleghanies under his direction. In 1834, he began the steam-boat enterprise. In 1836, he appeared in Wall Street. For eleven years his firm was very celebrated. Mr. Drew was a rapid, bold, and successful operator. His connection with the Erie Railroad, guaranteeing the paper of that company to the amount of a million and a-half of dollars, showed the magnitude of his transactions. In 1857, as treasurer of the company, his own paper, endorsed by Vanderbilt to the amount of a million and a-half of dollars saved the Erie from bankruptcy. During that year, amidst universal ruin, Mr. Drew’s losses were immense; but he never flinched, met his paper promptly, and said that, during all that crisis, he had not lost one hour’s sleep. In conjunction with Vanderbilt, he relieved the Harlem Road from its floating debt, and replaced it in a prosperous condition.