THE AMERICAN RAILROAD KING.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2567, 29 March 1877, Page 3

THE AMERICAN RAILROAD KING.

Another of New YorkV;" poor boys" has gone to hisgruv m milli-nniro. Ti.ore was a time, wilhin tluv recollection .of mauy a man now livinjj in that city, when Cornelius VanderbiU, better :■ known as the " Old Commodore," would have boon only; too glad to have thlcen tlie 'price of a dinner from any. kind Christian who to be charitably.disposed. How rnuclif he'waSjWorth last .Thursday, when h"e'diedi probably no one but his eldest son : knows ; for the ;larger;part of the Commodore's fortune is in railroads—the New York Central, Harlem, and Hudson hirer—and the oxact condition of these roads is a family secret. One thiuu 'is tolerably certain . these properties are immensely valuable. They run through the finest part of New York State, have a double " track" of steel rails, all the rolling stock is in splendid order, and they have been managed for years past with consummate judgment. During the darkest days of the rebellion, when Government bond-? viere a diug in the market, " Cential ' stock went up, to the enormous figure of 325. _ In 1873 it dropped down as low as 24 A wonderful road, beyond all doubt; but how much does it really owe, and what are its true assets ? You may ask those questions of whom you please, and only have your trouble for your pains. The New York Central and Hudson River railroads are as completely in the hands of the Vanderbilts as Baltimore and Ohio is in the hands of Mr Garrett. It was a hard school that the Old Commodore was brought up in, and a hard man it made of him. He had no time for sympathy or charity ; he cared for nothing outside his business except whist, fast horses,and' —- But why make a complete catologue of his little weaknesses? While he could sit upright in his buggy—a .miserable tumbledown-looking affair it was—he never failed to drive out every evening along the tßloomingdale-road, at the rate of a mile in three minutes, spanking past etfervbxly ~: except the owner of Dexter, that famous trotter for which the proprietor of the New York Ledger paid over £5000. Perched up on his narrow seat, the old railroad king looked more like Death out for a drive than a living man ; for his features Were sunken, and the hue of his face was so livid that even the white handkerchief twisted round his withered throat seemed to have some color in it by comparison. No horse could go fast enough to suit him; and yet a man past eighty, with eyesight , failing, and with scarcely strength enough left to scrambles into his buggy/might well-have been satisfied to dash in and out among the helter-skelter drivers of New York at the rate of twenty miles an hour. This was the Commodore's afternoon excitement; in the morning he had the Stock Exchange to amuse him. For this wonderful old man was one of the greatest gamblers that, ever lived; playing at times for vast, slakes, pitted against antagonists who were scarcely ever known to fail, and yet always keeping his wits as cool and collected as if he were merely playing a quiet rubber at the " Manhattan" for five-dollar points. ETo one was in his confidence'as to .his plans or intentions ; he thought' out his schemes alone, and alone he carried them into execution. He had a sincere contempt, quite justified by facts, for the vast majority of his fellow-beings. There was a vein of cynical humour about him which helped him much in many an embarrasing position and enabled him to keep his own counsel in a country,where any man who knows you consider&.himself at perfect liberty to walk up in the street, and ask you any question >he thinks proper about your most important private affairs. The Commodore has a way of < parrying such attacks as these, which not even the " chain-lightning *' interviewers of the New York press could resist. He would chuck- them under the chin, call them " sonny," and tell them an ironical yarn about the way in which he rose from poverty to wealth, and then advise them mockingly to go and do the same. If they plied their questions, he chaffed all the more. The other sharp hands, on the Stock Exchange very seldom took a " rise " out of "the Commodore. Jay Gould tried it-once or twice, but he came oufrof the encounter a' good" deal torn r and ' shaken. ' 'Another great speculatdr and gambler, " Uncle " Daniel Dfew, o'shared the same lot, which ,he took to be very hard after he, had pro-, pitiated the Fates, as he ih'ought, by subscribing' 200,000 dollars towards founding 'anew Methodist college. Daniel's own account of the way in v which he got this money was characteristic: " I didn't know where the money was coming from, I was worried over 1 it, and so tbade it a 'subject of -prayer. • After- fasting -attd< Spraying over the matter for one day, I (went down to WalUstreet, and in less than twenty-four hours I skinned those fellows out of two hundred thousand dollars." The old rascal failed last year, and now the only survivor"of the " leviathans" of the Wall-street often years ago is Jay |G6uld| r in'rsome the greatest jcuriosity ofthenvallv And he', they say, has taken to politicsrand perhaps may yet be, seen voting in the Senate on.-his own railroad bills. ; .; ; ! •,-"■ ' ,: -Holders :>of New York-Central Stock and Bonds; will naturally feel uneasy as; toitlie:ultimate effect of the Commodore's" deatfi'upon their property. Is not the leading spirit gone ? In some sense, yes; but the'acting-manager of the " Central" for" several years past has been the Commodbre's sbri, Mr W. H. Vanderbilt, and he in tiltn has ; a son of twenty- seven or.. thereabouts,' -brought up in the. office, and thoroughly familiar, with the. .business... So that the yatiderbil t dynasty is pretty well established. But are (he sons good business men ?•■ Beyond doubt. " W.IL" may not have the dash of brilliancy -'of; his father; but he is a very safe,-shrewd, long-headed man of affairs, and is about the last person in New York to make a serious mistake. Jay Gould roaj lay a few snares for him now that the father is out of the way, but Vahdeibilt the younger cannot have been working hand in hand with the' Commodore all these years without cutting his wisdom teeth. The advice and dexterity of the old man were valuable, but in one way he was a source of injury to the property; for whenever the X bears" wanted to make a raid upon it, they. had only to invent a story of his illness or'xleath, and down went the stock. TJiis "cause of disturbance is now" gone. The Commodore has lived his day, and the great railroads of which he' was practically master will henceforth be in steadier and more cautious, if less adventurous, hands.—World.