to tumble. Soon the Treasury order to sell $4,000,000 of gold appeared, and then the terrible collapse. Prices fell from 165 to 133½. The board-room was the scene of contending furies. Albert Speyer completely lost control of himself; his hair is said to have turned white that night after he went home a ruined man. Wall and Broad streets were filled with men wild with excitement. Infuriated mobs surrounded the offices of Fisk & Belden and Smith, Gould & Martin. Threats of violence were made. Speyer went about saying: "Some one has threatened to shoot me. Let him shoot." The Gold Exchange Bank was obliged to suspend operations. Its clearances that day amounted to over $300,000,000 of gold. Trading was stopped in the Gold Board. Fisk & Belden suspended and their contracts were repudiated. The fortunes of hundreds were swept away in that day's battle. Several firms were driven to the wall and announced their failures. The administration was involved in suspicion which it took years to remove. The nation was disgraced and its credit was broken.
But Gould, "the guilty plotter of all these criminal proceedings," went home saved. What he made or what he lost in that struggle is unknown, but though he had involved others in ruin and had betrayed others, he had saved himself from overthrow. To have gone down in the fight would have been a display of heroism. To save himself alone from the wreck was dishonor.
It is not strange that in his sworn autobiography
