"W. C. BRANN: It might be pertinent for you to find out how the festive George, of yacht-racing, Waler-hob-nobbing fame, has managed to reap such pronounced benefits from the revival in business. It is notorious among railroad men that one of the first moves of Superintendent Trice, who succeeded Tim Campbell as manager of the I. & G. N., was to inaugurate a series of 'reforms,' the chief feature of which was the cutting salaries of from 20 to 40 per cent, especially among the office men, and at the same time covering it by swapping the men around as much as possible. Forces were reduced by compelling the half-starved employees to do overtime at less pay, and the poor devils can only grin and bear it. Suppose you write down, and get the true data from the various places where the I. & G. N. touches, and then show the true source, or the real 'revival' that has given the festive George such a boost in his cash box." In the first place, "the business revival" has not "added $15,000,000 to the value of the Gould securities"--it is a political falsehood which George can be depended upon to promptly repudiate when the tax assessor calls around to tender congratulations. It is eleven to seven that Georgie assures him that the Gould estate is in a very bad way, that only by the most heroic self-sacrifices in this period of business depression can he succeed in remaining solvent; that there was a slight advance in railway values while crops were moving, only to be succeeded by a doleful slump, caused by the high tariff, which cuts so dreadfully into tonnage. If he refrains from putting up some such game of talk as that I'll take up a collection among the bootblacks of Texas to help pay his taxes. Fifteen millions in three weeks! Oh my! Since "Count" Castellane pulled one leg off the estate it is no larger than it was when old Jay went to He-aven. Now Jay was an honorable man--at least he wouldn't steal the buttons off your undershirt while you had it on, and hotel keepers; did not take the precaution to chain his knife and fork to the table; but in his palmiest days he paid taxes on but $75,000 worth of personal property--railway securities and "sich." Heavy crops, for which Providence and the industry of the American people are alone responsible, have added somewhat to the present earning power of railway properties, but it is doubtful, if the total mileage and equipment owned by the Goulds would sell for as much actual cash as before the election of McKinley. The great bulk of the boasted advance in Gould securities consists of wind pumped in by the "pulls"; but just the same the American people will be bled to pay dividends on this speculative boodle--both patrons and employees will suffer that interest may be collected on "invested capital" which never had an existence. But even were the dispatches true, what must be said of a "business revival" that reduces wages, that adds enormously