The education which Jay Gould acquired through his own energies as a youth, found its best application in this work of development. In his purely speculative adventures he was aided by a disposition whose traits, as has already been intimated, were formed in his youth or early manhood. It is impossible to contemplate without astonishment and even admiration, the spectacle of so stable a character as one must admit Mr. Gould’s to have been, fixed in boyhood and remaining unchanged all through a career which extended from a condition of the most modest kind (not to call it absolute poverty) to a position from which practically he ruled the financial world of this continent and materially affected the fortunes of the other. With untold wealth at his command, he was as simple in tastes, as unaffected in manner, as abstemious in habits, as industrious, as self-dependent and self-reliant, as when he set out in boyhood to make himself a rich man. Nor did any of his less amiable characteristics undergo a less change. In some of his first business ventures, can be read the same disposition for silent intrigue, the same secretiveness touching his intentions, the same subtlety and elaborateness of plan, and the same indifference to the feelings or comments of others, as marked the tremendous operations which are the climaxes of his purely speculative career--the war over Erie and the gold operations which culminated in that memorable and deplorable day which is written in history as “Black Friday.” There was, perhaps, never a time in Jay Gould’s career when it was possible to estimate his wealth with anything approaching correctness. His secretive disposition stood in the way of a general acquaintance with the outcome of his many ventures. Long after he had gained control of the Wabash system of Railways, the Manhattan Elevated and the Western Union Telegraph Company, during a little flurry in Wall street, in which everybody thought the finger of Jay Gould was hidden, but nobody knew, a broker sagely observed, “Mr. Gould has many properties, but a brass band is not one of them.” He never went forth trumpeting his affairs. Moreover, his wealth always consisted of stocks and bonds which were subject to the fluctuations of the market, and which unquestionably derived a considerable proportion of their value from the fact that he controlled the property which they represented. Once, however, he put aside his natural secrecy and made an exhibition of his wealth in order to quiet some annoying reports that were current touching his financial condition. This was in March, 1882, when he spread the contents of his strong box before his astonished visitors.