Mr. Adams did not have this report before him when he wrote his “chapter.” His record closes in 1868, soon after Mr. Gould had been elected president of the road. This had been brought about in the following manner: While Gould was engaged in “fixing” the legislature, and the courts were filled with Erie suits, the various parties in interest got together and effected a compromise. Vanderbilt got rid of the useless stock he had bought at high figures. Drew pocketed his profits and returned from exile in Jersey. The Boston, Hartford and Erie crowd which had figured in these transactions, having got all they could out of Erie for the benefit of their own bankrupt road, withdrew. All litigation was stopped and injunctions revoked. Bills were rushed through the legislature favorable to both Vanderbilt and Erie. Drew resigned from the road; Vanderbilt relinquished his ambition for control, and the property was turned over to Gould and Fisk. Drew may have thought that by this time the poor old road was a squeezed lemon, but if so he was mistaken, for Gould and Sage found that the property had not yet been worked for all that was in it. What their administration cost the road is very plainly set forth in the testimony given before the Hepburn Committee of 1879, by J. W. Guppy, assistant general superintendent under Gould, and for many years connected with the road into whose service he first entered as a telegraph operator. When Gould was ousted from the control in March, 1872, the total stock was $86,536,910, the funded debt $26,395,000 and the floating debt $2,517,301, a total of $115,449,211, an increase during the time of Gould’s identification with the road of $64,383,268. Yet Mr. Guppy testified that not a dollar of this vast sum was represented by any additions to the road. At the time that the Gould-Fisk ring was sucking the life-blood of Erie, the Tweed-Sweeny ring was plundering the city of New York. The two were really one. From Mr. Gould’s testimony just quoted and from other facts here presented, it will be seen how closely allied they were. Tweed was one of the executive committee of the Erie and was paid large sums for so-called “legal” services. This was a great day for the spoilsmen. It was a long feast of corruption. Dishonesty walked openly in the streets, bribery influenced elections and controlled legislatures, and plundering was a fine art. Great as was Tweed at this time, his prosperity was soon to end in flight, capture, imprisonment, disgrace and death, but Gould survived the exposure and lived to enjoy his wealth and power. CHAPTER VII. GOULD’S VICTORY AND FINAL DEFEAT IN ERIE.