At that period Mr. Gould was the owner of the New York _World_, and for several months in 1881 that newspaper was greatly exercised over the bad management and “financial rottenness” of the Manhattan company. Scarcely a day would pass that the _World_ did not contain an editorial or a news paragraph attacking Manhattan. The stock kept dropping two, three and five points at a time. With the beginning of July, 1887, suits were pending against the three elevated railroad companies in all of the state courts in which they could be brought. Mr. Gould became a stockholder in the Metropolitan company on the 1st of that month, 100 shares of stock having been transferred to him by Russell Sage. On July 8th, Mr. Gould, Mr. Connor, Mr. Navarro, and other friends of Mr. Gould were elected directors of the Metropolitan company. On the same day Attorney-General Ward entered an order discontinuing his suit against the Manhattan company in this judicial district. He immediately, however, applied to Judge Westbrook at Kingston, and obtained an order appointing ex-Judge John F. Dillon and Albert L. Hopkins receivers of the Manhattan company. A few days afterward Cyrus W. Field began a suit to take the New York company’s roads out of the hands of the Manhattan company, and later an application was made to the receivers to sue the New York and Manhattan companies for the $13,000,000 of stock issued without consideration. In the meantime the _World_ kept up an incessant fire of criticism and denunciation of the Manhattan company. The price of the stock naturally kept dropping until it got as low as 16. Early in October Mr. Gould went into the Manhattan company, and it was proclaimed that he and his friends had obtained control. They held more than 70,000 shares, nearly all of which they had been able to pick up in the stock market at prices ranging from 20 to 16 cents on the dollar. All of the timid original stockholders had been scared into sacrificing their holdings by the confusing cloud of litigation and the attacks of Mr. Gould’s newspaper.