144 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



Railway. Since the passage of the bill 'to legalize 

 counterfeit money,' in April, and the present November, 

 new IHit had burst upon the judicial mind; and as the 

 news of one injunction and a vague rumor of the other 

 crept through Wall street that day, it was no wonder 

 that operators stood aghast and that Erie fluctuated 

 wildly from 50 to 61 and back to 48. 



" The Erie directors, however, did not rest satisfied 

 with the position which they had won through Judge 

 Barnard's order. That simply placed them, as it were, 

 in a strong defensive attitude. They were not the men 

 to stop there : they aspired to nothing less than a vigor- 

 ous offensive. With a superb audacity, which excites 

 admiration, the new trustee immediately filed a supple- 

 mentary petition. Therein it was duly set forth that 

 doubts had been raised as to the legality of the recent 

 issue of some two hundred thousand shares of stock, 

 and that only about this amount was to be had in 

 America; the trustee therefore petitioned for authority 

 to use the funds of the corporation to purchase and 

 cancel the whole of this amount at any price less than 

 the par value, without regard to the rate at which it 

 had been issued. The desired authority was conferred 

 by Mr. Justice Barnard as soon as asked. Human 

 assurance could go no further. The petitioners had 

 issued these shares in the bear interest at 40, and had 

 run down the value of Erie to 35; they had then 

 turned around, and were now empowered to buy back 

 that very stock in the bull interest, and in the name 

 and with the funds of the corporation, at par. A law 

 of the State distinctly forbade corporations from oper- 

 ating in their own stock ; but this law was disregarded 

 as if it had been only an injunction. An injunction 



