Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/61

 tannery, some of them making fearful leaps from the second story."

After this depreciation of value in the tannery property, Gould's ready resources were so exhausted that it is related that he had to borrow the money to pay his railroad fare to New York. It is probable that no man in this or any other country has ever been a party to so many lawsuits as Gould. From the time of the contest over the map business there was scarcely a day during his whole life that he did not have some litigation on his hands. This ends the early chapters of Gould's life. He now entered upon that career in the metropolis which has made his name familiar around the globe.

It is doubtful if many young men, before the age of twenty-four years, have passed through as many and as varied experiences as these of Jay Gould. All his training now for several years had been in the line, first, of competition with others in the same business as his own, and then in direct conflict and war with those who had been his associates. He had learned not only to conquer his enemies, but to conquer his friends. He had thoroughly developed and made apparent to every one who came in contact with him that spirit that remained with him through all his life, the mania for the aggrandizement of his own fortune, no matter whose money must be lost for him to gain it. The last chapter of his tannery experiences was a dark one, and there is nothing in it to be held up for admiration by any one, but rather as an example of the first notable evil in the