Mr. Vanderbilt’s bequests were liberal and numerous. He added $300,000 to the million which his father gave, through the wife of the Commodore and Dr. Deems, to the Nashville University. He gave half a million to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and his sister, Mrs. Sloane, added a quarter of a million to this generous donation. It cost him over $100,000 to remove Cleopatra’s Needle from Egypt to Central Park. He offered to cancel the $150,000 check which he gave to General Grant to relieve him from the Ward-Fish embarrassment, and his munificent gift to the waiter students in the White Mountains will long be remembered. Although Mr. Vanderbilt was very courageous, as was proved by the fact that no matter how many threatening letters he may have received—and their name was legion—from cranks, socialists and others, he never made any change in his programme or his routine of business for the day, and never absented himself from the place where he was expected at any particular hour on account of such letters. Yet he was peculiarly sensitive to public opinion, and sought in various ways to correct its hasty judgment in regard to himself and his enormous wealth. It was this sensitive feeling, together with his profound respect for popular opinion against monopolies, which induced him to sell a controlling interest, 300,000 shares out of 400,000, at from 120 to 130, ten points below the market price, of New York Central stock in 1879 to a syndicate, the chief members of which were Drexel, Morgan & Co., Morton, Bliss & Co., August Belmont & Co., Winslow, Lanier & Co., L. Von Hoffman & Co, Cyrus W. Field, Edwin D. Morgan, Russell Sage, Jay Gould and J. S. Morgan & Co. of London. The amount paid for the stock was $35,000,000. As the syndicate largely represented the Wabash system, the stock of that property, as well as New York Central, had an important advance. The reasons assigned for this stupendous and unprecedented stock transaction are briefly condensed by Mr. Chauncey M. Depew as follows: “Mr. Vanderbilt, because of assaults made upon him in the Legislature and in the newspapers, came to the conclusion that it was a mistake for one individual to own a controlling interest in a great corporation like the New York Central, and also a mistake to have so many eggs in one basket, and he thought it would be better for himself and better for the company if the ownership were distributed as widely as possible. The syndicate afterwards sold it, and the stock became one of the most widely-distributed of the dividend-paying American securities. There are now about 14,000 stockholders. At the time he sold there were only 3,000.”