He is a strong advocate of method. The day’s work is laid out in the morning and almost before the train starts in the morning he has settled how many stops can be made during the day and where the night can be spent. He dines and sleeps on board his car from the start to the finish of a three weeks’ trip. At night the Convoy is run to the quietest part of the yard, as the owner objects to more noise than he can avoid at night, though he can apparently stand as much as any one else in daylight. His car is always a curiosity along the line, and people come from far and near to look at it as it stands in the evening in a secluded spot, secure in its loneliness. In some parts of the country through which his roads run he is quite as much of a curiosity in the eyes of the country folk as a circus, and were he to stand on the platform after the manner of James G. Blaine, would attract quite as big a crowd as that gentleman. He is never apparently anxious to achieve notoriety in that way, and is quite as modest in his demeanor while on one of his tours as he is in his office or his Fifth Avenue mansion. In the latter, as a few newspaper reporters know, he is more unassuming and far more polite than a majority of his thousand-dollar employes.
Mr. Gould meets some odd as well as prominent people on his trips and occasionally has a peculiar experience. On his first visit to Galveston, Texas, he discovered that it was on an island. Like a good many others he imagined it was on the mainland. On this occasion a number of citizens had been appointed to do him honor and he had promised to take up his quarters at a hotel. The committee had neglected to secure carriages for the party, and made a desperate effort just before the arrival of his car to repair the omission. This it was unable to do. There was an election at Galveston on that particular day. It was a hot one, both the day and the election, and everything on wheels had been bought up by the contending parties. Twenty dollars was offered for a hack and refused. The committee felt forlorn until Mr. Gould laughed at its dilemma and remarked that he saw no hills that he couldn’t climb. This is the only joke charged against Mr. Gould by the people who live on the line of his roads, for the highest point of Galveston is only three feet above the sea level. The inhabitants claim four feet, and denounce as a libel the statement made by people who live inland to the effect that tide water is three feet higher than Galveston.
While skimming along over the International and Great Northern, between Houston and Galveston, Mr. Gould cannot look on either side of him without looking at land owned by A. A. Talmage, manager of the Wabash Railroad. Mr. Talmage owns a tract or ranch—though there are but few cattle on it—of 160,000 acres. For this land Mr. Talmage paid 12½ cents per acre. He would probably refuse to sell it to-day for $6 an acre. If Mr. Talmage owned nothing else besides this ranch he might be considered above want. Mr. Gould owns some land in different parts of the country also, but as a proprietor of the soil he occupies a much lower grade than Manager Talmage. George Gould probably owns as much land—railroad land grants not considered—in the Southwest as his father, and is always on the lookout for bargains. These are always to be had at the close of a disastrous agricultural or cattle season. Newcomers in Texas are liable to forget that disastrous years only occur occasionally, and that in three favorable seasons the profits will be large enough to stand one bad season in three. They may hear of all this after they sell out, but the old settler is not offering information that can only be bought with experience until it is valuable as a mournful reflection.
The Iron Mountain Railroad has a station called Malvern. It is 44 miles south of Little Rock. As his car pulls into Malvern Mr. Gould sees on a narrow gauge railroad that also has a station there an engine with a diamond-shaped head-light. The narrow gauge road runs from Malvern to Hot Springs. Mr. Gould has no interest in it, but he knows it was built and is owned—every spike in it—by a man who received his first start in life from the same man who placed him on his feet. The Hot Springs railroad is owned by “Diamond Joe” Reynolds, who was started in business many years ago by Zadock Pratt, of the town of Prattsville, Greene county, N. Y., when the young man lived in Sullivan county, right across the line of Delaware county, Penn., where Jay Gould was enabled by Mr. Pratt to tan hides with oak and hemlock bark, not after the fashion of Wall Street. Reynolds and Gould were assisted by Mr. Pratt about the same time. Reynolds is not as wealthy to-day as Mr. Gould, but he owns all the money he wants, and Mr. Gould has often said it did not need fifty millions to secure contentment. “Diamond Joe” Reynolds is a rich man and he spends much of his time between Chicago and Hot Springs. On his first visit to Hot Springs he was compelled to stage it from Malvern. The ride disgusted him as much as the Springs delighted him. He found a man who had obtained a charter for a railroad from Malvern to the Springs and who had no money. The charter and some money changed hands. Reynolds built the railroad and owns it, rolling stock and all. The road is 24 miles long. He made his money in wheat, but not in Sullivan county. After getting a start there he went West and shipped wheat from Wisconsin to Chicago. He shipped it in sacks and marked the sacks with a diamond and inclosed in it the letters “J. O.” It was from this circumstance, because the sacks and trade mark became widely known, that he obtained the sobriquet of “Diamond Joe,” and not as those who have only heard of him think for a penchant for gems, and Mr. Reynolds is modest as well as rich.
Mr. Gould travels like a rocket while inspecting his roads. In this way he gets a certain amount of exercise, for, as travelers know, a heavy train drawn at the rate of 50 miles an hour will make little fuss in comparison with the antics of a single car tacked to an engine making the same rate. Mr. Gould often travels in the Convoy at a 50-mile gait, and during such a trip he has been known to change seats—from one side of the car to the other—not of his own volition, but without changing countenance. So long as Superintendent Kerrigan keeps his hand off the bell rope Mr. Gould makes no remonstrance, but accepts his shaking without a grumble. He changed engineers on one of his recent trips without knowing it. The engineer had been running slowly, for reasons of his own, in spite of numerous pulls at the bell cord. When, however, he discovered that dinner was under way he pulled the throttle open, and the locomotive darted ahead suddenly as if going through space. The jar cleaned the table like a flash. At the next station the engineer was promoted to a freight train.
A REMINISCENCE OF KANSAS PACIFIC.
There is an interesting piece of information regarding the deal in Kansas Pacific in the testimony of Mr. Artemus H. Holmes, formerly the attorney of that company, showing how the stock made a marvelous leap from two or three dollars to par in seven days. Mr. Holmes testified as follows:
From 1873 to 1877 the market value of all the Kansas Pacific securities was extremely low. The Kansas Pacific stock was $2 to $3 a share and practically valueless. Land grant bonds were worth 10 cents on the dollar, and Denver extension about 40, but ranged from 50 to 70 in 1876 to 1878. The first mortgage bonds were below par, the company’s credit was gone and the stock unmarketable. Sidney Dillon, who was then President of the Kansas Pacific Company, was anxious to have the matter settled as quickly as possible. At the former’s suggestion a friendly suit was brought on January 17, 1880, before Judge Donohue, in the Supreme Court, in this city, to settle the ownership of the Denver Pacific stock. The trustees said they could not do anything with the stock that would injure it. On January 20, 1880, Horace M. Ruggles, as referee, heard argument, the case was closed in two days, the decision was made January 23 and the decree signed by Judge Donohue on January 24, giving the stock to the Gould party. Mr. Holmes stated: “All the time this was pending the articles of consolidation were being drawn up, but I did not know anything about it until they were signed on January 24.” Referee Ruggles decided that 29,000 snares of Denver Pacific stock free from mortgages should pass to the Kansas Pacific. This was put into the Union Pacific and 29,000 shares of the consolidated company’s stock given in exchange, which sold at par. The witness was sharply questioned as to what he knew about Referee Ruggles’ report. He was asked if he knew who wrote the report, or had any knowledge as to who did.
Q. In order to prepare the decree which was signed on Jan. 24, you must have had the finding before you, did you not? A. No.
Q. How could you prepare it without knowing what the finding was, for the decree was presented the very next day? A. I must withdraw that answer, and change it to yes.