The Daily Morning Astorian

THE LATEST SENSATIONAL STORY
Twenty Million Dollars Demanded For His Release.
'TIS EITHER TRUTH OR FICTION.
The Full Story Published in "The Astorian" This Morning Simultaneously With the New York Papers.
Special by The California Associated Press.
New York, March 15. - The daily papers are making a sensation out of the supposed kidnapping of Jay Gould. The World advertises to print to-morrow "How Gould was kidnapped in 1857." The Sun this afternoon prints a long story with the heading "Kidnapped". According to the story the World will print Gould was taken from the train at Irvington. The Sun's story has Gould paying a million dollars for his release, and says "Gould met his captors later on a business basis and got it all back."

The Sun's story has Jay Gould paying a million dollars for his release, and says: "Gould met his captors on a business basis and got there with both feet, getting it all back." Russell Sage was asked what would be the effect if Gould had been really kidnapped. He replied "If that whole story were true the effect on Wall street and on the securities of the country would be comparatively unimportant. All the Gould stocks would be affected somewhat though not tremendously. Gould's will is made and in that he will protect his interests as well as he does in life. There is not the slightest doubt he has fixed things so that if death or a kidnapper should get him his properties could not be thrown upon the market, and sacrificed in a moment of foolish panic. He owns his stocks. They would be held tight, and there would be trouble on the market. The effect of a temporary and unreasoning excitement would not amount to two per cent. Some years ago it would have been different. Then Gould was literally standing under the market and holding it up and if he had stepped from under the market everything would have tumbled, but to-day it is different. He is in the pleasing position of a man standing on the outside looking quietly on things which he owns and has absolute control of. If he should go they would not be sacrificed because they would not be for sale."

The Sun, continuing the interview, says: "The office-boy comes into the editor's room and announces the following: 'A man what wants to see you; he won't give his name. I think it's Jay Gould.' 'Show him in.' The man who came did look like Gould. There was the familiar awry twisted beard and of the same color as Gould's: quick, restless, dark eyes, long prominent nose, same shaped head and forehead, the identical general expression. I don't wish to take up your time," the man says in a business like way. but a gentlemanly voice, "but I have something to tell you which I think you will be glad to publish in your paper. Of course I want money for it. Now to come straight to the point, will you give me $50 if I tell you the full particulars of how Jay Gould was kidnapped?" "Kidnapped!" "Yes, sir; kidnapped!!" "Jay Gould was stolen as I tell you, stolen bodily away, held sure and fast in spite of all his craft and iron will, and released only when he came squarely down and met every demand made upon him, and now I will tell you how that was done. Now I know what you are thinking about. You are thinking I have gone crazy because I look like Gould." "Of course, I know I look like him: I ought to know it, for I have been taken for him often when I had money to buy fine clothes. I used to be taken for him every day of my life. Why, that's just what started the whole business. If I hadn't looked like Gould Gould would never have been kidnapped, but now I am not going to tell you anything until we have an understanding. What do you say, shall I tell my story?" "Why, certainly," said the editor, after a few minutes pause, "tell your story if we will pay you what you ask for it. If we don't, of course the communication is confidential." "And do I get my money here now?" "If we print your story we will pay you just as soon as we get it." A look of relief passed over the little man's countenance, and settling himself comfortably back in his chair, he deposited his battered hat carefully on the floor beside him, and spoke as follows:

"Now I don't propose to tell you the names of the men who took part in the job. I was one of them, I won't deny that, but you know my name and you may call the two men who were with me Miller and Porter, and call me Wall if you like. Miller and Porter were and still are professional crooks. Miller is a tall, handsome fellow who always dresses well, and in pretty close imitation of a gentleman. He is a confidence man and plays for high stakes. Porter is rougher and coarser, but still is presentable enough when he has good clothes. By profession he is a burglar and has been in prison. He was in Wall street, in a modest way, and has a little money. My little pile came in contact with Gould's big, rolling snowball, which carried it off. My resemblance to Gould and my knowledge of Gould's ways in Wall street ways from being wiped out by him, is what put the game in our heads. It was last August when I was sitting with Porter and Miller at a table in a beer saloon under the Staats Zeitung building. Porter walked in, 'hello, Jay,' he said, for when I came in they always called me Jay, 'come have some beer.' Well, as I went over to them I noticed that Miller looked flush. He had in fact, made a reasonable fill out west, and was living in style at the Windsor, and laying for something to turn up. 'Jay,' he said, 'if I had that mug of yours I would make millions out of it.' 'D---n me,' said Porter, all of a sudden as he brought his fist down on the table, 'd---n me, why don't we make a million out of Jay's mug? Twenty million dollars to split among us; what's the matter with that?' Now that's the way the whole thing started. Porter's remark struck us all of a heap at first, for I saw he was in earnest: in fact, at a flash it came over me that it would do something. In five minutes we were hard at work on what turned out to be the biggest job ever put up and worked through in New York or anywhere else."

"The thing took such a serious turn that Miller said we were in no place to talk business and asked us up to his room in the Windsor. Now, Miller's room was opposite Gould's house which, you know, is on the northwest corner of Fifth avenue and Forty-second street. The moment we got into his room Miller took us up before an open window and pointed to the house. 'There, boys,' he said, 'is the box we've got to crack. In that cage is a bird worth just as much money to us as we ask for. Now the question is how are we going to get our hands on him. In the first place we have got to study the habits of the animal. Here is the best place to do it, but you, Jay, have got to keep that mug of yours shady for one thing. We can't have two Gould Dromios trotting around the neighborhood. But about the old man's movements, as I understand it he goes down town in his brougham every morning about 10 o'clock, leaves his office at 3, either drives back to the house or goes out to his place at Irvington, sometimes by mail train, sometimes by yacht, and seldom leaves his office, not even for luncheon. So far as our plan is concerned he does not exist from 10 in the morning until three in the afternoon. Where he goes after that, or what his habits are between three o'clock in the afternoon and until he goes to bed, is all that we have to consider. Now, my plan is a nervy one, and may strike one as impossible, but when you come to think it over, you'll find it's the only thing. Gould's stable is on Thirty-eighth street, east of Fifth avenue, just four blocks below his house. I have piped the place for the last week, seen the coachman bring out the brougham exactly at 9:45 every morning. Now, those men must get a message some morning from Gould that he does not want his brougham. Gould must get a message from the men that a wheel on the brougham is broken and that they have sent a coupe from Bachman's livery stable in its place. The coupe is sent and will have Billy Horner in the box for driver. It will be fixed up in such a way that whoever rides in it won't know anything after he has ridden two blocks. I will give a message to the coachman; we will do it this way. Wall here must walk to the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-eighth street, with me, and wait there in sight of the men who are bringing out the brougham. They must believe he is Gould. I will walk up to them and say, 'Gould asks me to tell you he is going to walk down town this morning, and will not need the brougham.' As I say that, Wall from the corner will nod his head as if to signify that what I say goes. Then I will return; we will walk on down street in sight of the men, arm in arm. That will stop the brougham's coming to the house. As soon as that is done I will walk back here, Porter will drive the hired coupe to the sidewalk in front of the house. I'll tell the man at the door, that the wheel of the brougham is broken; that William, that's Gould's head coachman, sent a coupe from Bachman's. Gould will be waiting for the brougham; will come out of the house to get in it, and will suspect nothing for it will be a handsome turnout. Billy here will be in correct livery and all that sort of thing. Just as he is coming down the steps I will come up to them. I'll look pretty hard at him, raise my hat, and say: 'Gould, I believe. I'm so-and-so naming some big Western financier that the old man has heard of but never seen. I hoped to catch you before you went down town. It was in reference to some western securities of yours. I want to talk to you, as I see your carriage is waiting. I will ask you to let me ride down town with you for my time is very pressing and of great importance, involving a good many millions.' He can't refuse to let me get in with him. As soon as we are in the cab together, the matter is easy enough. I'll have a sponge soaked with chloroform under the seat. I'll hold him by the throat with my left hand while I soak his face with the sponge in my right, he'll be quiet in a minute, and Porter can drive us wherever he pleases.' Porter seemed to like the plan, but I wouldn't have it at any price. It was too much of a knock-down and drag-out to suit me. The idea of chloroforming a man on the avenue with a dozen carriages passing with footmen at each window, every minute. Then Porter, who was headlong, foolhardy and rough, said the easiest plan was to hire a gang of lads he knew and hold up the train on one of the days Gould went out on it to Irvington. I said, impatiently, 'you've not considered our strongest card, and that is my exact resemblance to the man we want: we must make use of that before everything.' "That's so,' said Miller 'we mustn't forget some scheme by which we can make use of your face.' 'Well, we talked it over for hours, and at last, not without missgivings on my part, we decided on a scheme. We planned that we would decoy Gould over to the Windsor hotel, and that when he was safely there in our room, in our power we could leave the hotel openly, conspicuously, so that several people should see me, and so that every one who saw me would say: That is Gould, he has just been upstairs. Is going to his home across the street.' But before I left, Gould was to be changed so that his family wouldn't know him; he was to be shaved as clean as a whistle, gagged, then drugged just enough to make him stupid. "When this was finished I was to leave the hotel ostensibly as Gould, go to a private room near by, get shaved, change my clothes and return staggering slightly stopping at the desk to say that I wished to be shown to Miller's room, and to hurry, please, for I had dizziness in my head and wanted to lie down in my friend's room. As soon as I entered the room Gould was to be dressed in my clothes. I was to leave the hotel by the side entrance and Miller and Porter were to lead Gould down stairs, supporting him between them. The clerks and hall boys would think it was the sick man who had just gone up stairs, and would suspect nothing. A cab at the door was to take him away to one of the ferries; there we would dismiss the cab and engage a carriage of our own, in which we would drive him to a tenement house on the east side where no questions are asked and where we would be as much cut off from the rest of the world as though we were on a desert island. The plan was carried out successfully, and when he had fully recovered consciousness, he asked what they intended to do with him. Miller said, 'Gould, we don't want to hurt you, but we must warn you if you try to call out, or resist, we must use force.' Gould looked at him, but made no other sign that he understood. Gould seeing no other way out of it agreed to give us pointers. Gould got up, and sat down in one of the vacant chairs and said, 'I am quite able to understand anything you have to say but I want to ask you how long I have been away from home, and whether you have sent word to my family concerning what has happened to me.' Miller said, 'No, we haven't let 'em know yet how far you've traveled, because we do not care to let you know where you are. You are our prisoner until you or your family give the ransom we want.' 'What is it you want, or, rather, how much?' Gould asked. 'Twenty million dollars,' said Porter. 'How could I give $20,000,000,' asked Gould. 'The thing is simply an impossibility.' 'I think you are worth $20,000,000 to your family,' said Porter 'It isn't a question of how much I am worth to my family,' returned Gould, crossing one leg over the other and locking his hands in front of him as if he were ready to enter into an argument. 'It isn't the amount of the ransom; its absurdity lies in the utter impossibility of my conveying that sum to you without your being detected and given in trouble in taking it.' 'We'll answer for taking care of it if you'll place it where we can put our hands on it,' said Porter. 'That's just it,' said Gould; 'how are you going to put your hands on it without the use of a middleman, and what's to prevent that middleman from having one who comes for the money seized and held until he tells them where I am.' 'Oh that's easy enough,' said Porter. 'If our messenger doesn't return within twenty-four hours we will cut your throat within twenty-four hours.' Said Gould with a smile: 'Then I am not much farther off from New York than Jersey City.' 'Have you any idea how much of a package $20,000,000 would make?' 'In thousand dollar bills it wouldn't make very much,' said Porter. 'No, but every one of those bills would be numbered' said Gould, 'my own would have numbers.' 'It would be simply impossible for you to pass them at any place in the civilized world. They would be as worthless to you as so many sheets of blank writing paper.' I hadn't said much up to this time, but now my knowledge of the street was to be of use to us if ever it was. 'Gould,' I said, 'you can sit here and give us pointers that will enable us to make $20,000,000 in a week. If you will write us to-night your check for $100,000 with a note saying it is all right, the bearer is one of your clerks, who can be trusted with money. We will present that at the bank the moment it opens to-morrow morning; then, with that capital, operate as you direct on the street. You never need to appear in the matter in any way. We will permit you to send a note to your son George, informing him of these operations which will undoubtedly surprise the street, that they are made at your direction and that you are paying off a ransom of $20,000,000 and that you will be a prisoner until the sum is paid.' Gould accepted this proposition, the note was sent, and the $100,000 secured. On the morning of September 15 the stock exchange opened quietly, but was succeeded by a panic, caused by some mysterious plunger, and so continued for some hours after, finally closing $3,000,000 ahead by using Gould's tips. A mysterious report got out that Gould was kidnapped and caused great excitement on Wall street. To the amazement of the crowd on that day Gould appeared on the street. After getting our ransom we set Gould free but we continued speculating and for the second time Gould cleaned me out, so I am now a tramp going around selling my story, after only three days of Gould's freedom. He is a bad man to run against.'

Intense rivalry among local papers is the result of rampant and criminal sensationalism the week past, placing placards at elevated stations and other conspicuous places have announced the story of Jay Gould kidnapped in 1892 and held for ransom will be published in the World to-morrow morning. The Evening World, daily, contained a catchy article to whet the appetite of the public. Friday the World people surreptitiously bought a quarter page of the Sun printed a puffy advertisement of a story to be published in the Sunday World. The Sun people in revenge printed this evening a story of Gould being kidnapped, anticipating the World 12 hours. The Press will also publish a like story to-morrow. The whole matter is severely condemned by all honest people, and there is much talk of the necessity of a press censor. The stories are wholly imaginary, rankly unjust and conducive to stimulate crime by creating an idea in the minds of the vicious.