152 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



next day a card from Mr. Fisk was telegraphed to the 

 newspapers, denying the calumny in indignant terms. 

 The eternal steel rails were again made to do duty, 

 and the midnight flitting became a harmless visit to 

 Binghamton on business connected with a rollipg-niill. 

 Judge Balcom, however, of injunction memory in the 

 earlier records of the Erie suits, resides at Binghamton, 

 and a leading New York paper not inaptly made the 

 timid inquiry of Mr. Fisk, ' If he .really thought that 

 Judge Balcom was running a rolling-mill of the Erie 

 Company, what did he think of Judge Barnard ?' Mr. 

 Fisk, however, as became him in his character of the 

 Msecenas of the bar, instituted suits claiming damages 

 in fabulous sums, for defamation of character, against 

 some half-dozen of the leading papers, and nothing 

 further was heard of the matter, nor, indeed, of the 

 suits either. Not so of the trip to Binghamton. On 

 Tuesday, the 1st of December, while one set of law- 

 yer's were arguing an appeal in the Whelpley case 

 before Judge Nelson in the Federal courts, and another 

 set were procuring orders from Judge Cardozo staying 

 proceedings authorized by Judge Sutherland, a third 

 set were aiding Judge Balcom in certain new proceed- 

 ings instituted in the name of the Attorney-General 

 against the Erie road. The result arrived at was, of 

 course, that Judge Balcom declared his to be the only 

 shop where a regular, reliable article in the way of law 

 was retailed, and then proceeded forthwith to restrain 

 and shut up the opposition establishments. The action 

 was brought to terminate the existence of the defend- 

 ant as a corporation, and, by way of preliminary, 

 application was made for an injunction and the ap- 

 pointment of a receiver. His Honor held that, as only 



