if twenty hours a day of hard work would do it. I kept this position,
made many improvements, devised several stock tickers, until the Gold &
Stock Telegraph Company consolidated with the Gold Indicator Company."
Certainly few changes in fortune have been more sudden and dramatic in
any notable career than this which thus placed an ill-clad, unkempt,
half-starved, eager lad in a position of such responsibility in days
when the fluctuations in the price of gold at every instant meant
fortune or ruin to thousands.

Edison, barely twenty-one years old, was a keen observer of the stirring
events around him. "Wall Street" is at any time an interesting study,
but it was never at a more agitated and sensational period of its
history than at this time. Edison's arrival in New York coincided
with an active speculation in gold which may, indeed, be said to have
provided him with occupation; and was soon followed by the attempt
of Mr. Jay Gould and his associates to corner the gold market,
precipitating the panic of Black Friday, September 24, 1869. Securing
its import duties in the precious metal and thus assisting to create an
artificial stringency in the gold market, the Government had made it
a practice to relieve the situation by selling a million of gold each
month. The metal was thus restored to circulation. In some manner,
President Grant was persuaded that general conditions and the movement
of the crops would be helped if the sale of gold were suspended for
a time; and, this put into effect, he went to visit an old friend in
Pennsylvania remote from railroads and telegraphs. The Gould pool had
acquired control of $10,000,000 in gold, and drove the price upward
rapidly from 144 toward their goal of 200. On Black Friday they
purchased another $28,000,000 at 160, and still the price went up. The
financial and commercial interests of the country were in panic; but
the pool persevered in its effort to corner gold, with a profit of many