One of Jacob Little’s speculative ventures has been rendered historically famous through the rule of limitation of sixty days for option contracts. The necessity for this limit was brought about by one of his celebrated attempts to manipulate the market. He was one of the most prominent speculators in Erie in the early days of Drew’s transactions with that property and its stocks. Mr. Little had been selling large blocks of Erie on seller’s option, to run from six to twelve months. This was in the early history of “corners,” before the method of managing them scientifically had been fully developed and while “blind pools” were yet in embryo. [Illustration: THIS MAP OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINAL PEN-AND-INK HAND DRAWING MADE BY HENRY CLEWS FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. ] The leading members of the Erie Board formed a pool to “corner” Mr. Little, and ran Erie shares up to a considerable height. They imagined that he was in blissful ignorance of their purpose, and had everything arranged for a _coup d’etat_ which was to reach its crisis at two o’clock on a certain day, when Little was to be completely overwhelmed and hopelessly ruined. An hour prior to the time appointed by the clique for his disaster he walked into the Erie office, opened a bag filled with convertible bonds, and requested an exchange of stock for the same. He had purchased the bonds in London and had them safely locked up for the emergency, which he promptly met on its arrival. He got the stock, settled his contracts, broke the “corner,” and came out triumphantly. The option limit of sixty days was afterwards adopted in order to prevent similar triumphs in manipulation on the “short” side. As will be illustrated more fully in subsequent chapters, Mr. Little’s convertible bond trick was used with signal advantage by his speculative successors in Erie, who practically demonstrated on several occasions that there were millions in it. Mr. Little was generous and liberal to a fault with his brother speculators who had experienced misfortune. He used to say that he could paper his private office with notes he had forgiven to the members of the Board. He was also remarkable for his great memory. He could easily remember all the operations he made in the course of a day without making a note or a mistake. Like Drew, he was careless in his attire, wearing a hat like that of a farmer, and not a very prosperous one, but he had no compeer in his day at calculating ahead in a speculative venture. [Illustration: JACOB LITTLE. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II. WALL STREET AS A CIVILIZER.