tion is shown below.) An attempt
was made through the police and the secret service system to trace the
authorship of the superscription. The attempt was ineffectual.

[Facsimile]
If gold does not sell at 150 within 15 days I am a ruined man. You
will be the cause of my ruin! Your life will be in danger.
Wilkes Booth.

It appears in the review that Mr. Gould originated the scheme of
advancing the price of gold and that Mr. Fisk was his principal
coadjutor. It also appears that Mr. Fisk entered into the arrangement
upon the basis of friendship for Mr. Gould, and not in consequence of
an opinion on his part that the scheme was a wise one. Mr. Gould had
two main purposes in view: first, the profit that he might realize
from an advance in gold; and, second, the advantage that might accrue
to the railroad with which he was connected through an increase of its
business in the transportation of products from the West. As set forth
in Mr. Gould's letter, he entertained the opinion, which rested upon
satisfactory business grounds, that an advance in the price of gold
would stimulate the sale of Western products, increase the business
of transportation over the railways, and aid us in the payment of
liabilities abroad. If the price of gold had not been advanced beyond
a premium of forty or perhaps forty-five per cent, all these results
might have been realized, without detriment to the public, while Mr.
Gould and his associates would have realized large profits. When the
price had advanced to forty or forty-five per cent, Mr. Gould or his
associates made calls upon those who were under contracts to deliver
gold to make their margins good or else to produce the gold. These
demands created a panic, and the parties who had agreed to deliver gold
entered the market, and bidding against each other, they carried the
price beyond the point that Mr. Gould had contemplated.

XXXVI
AN HISTORIC SALE OF UNITED STATES BONDS IN ENGLAND

If there should be any considerable interest in the history of the
funding system of the United States, the interest would be due to a
sale of bonds some thirty years ago and certain incidents which could
not have been anticipated, which arose from the execution of the trust.

In the month of July, 1868, a bill for funding the national debt which
had passed the Senate of the United States was reported, without
amendments, to the House of Representatives by the Committee on Ways
and Means