BUBBLES 177 



of railroads and corrupters of courts, but in Wall 

 Street they were welchers. Henry N. Smith, 

 Gould's senior partner, told me that Jay Gould 

 was the poorest judge of the market that ever 

 came into Wall Street and Gould's henchman 

 and intimate, Charlie Osborne, said the hardest 

 thing he had ever done was to brace Jay up 

 when he was in a funk. 



Gold business improved and my balance was 

 growing when the Fisk and Gould gang entered 

 the gold market. Fortunately I had not the 

 capital to enter the lists with them and besides 

 I was afraid. Their methods lacked sense and 

 represented brute force only and the corner they 

 were running was foredoomed to destruction, but 

 their immediate power was uncanny. For they 

 not only had money, but they controlled a bank 

 which would have certified their checks in pay- 

 ment for all the gold on earth and they so con- 

 trolled the courts that they could have filled their 

 pockets with blank injunctions and manda- 

 muses or even the profane form of the latter sug- 

 gested by Fisk himself. 



