s. I confess I don't fully understand my own
case. Who ever does?

My "daily letters" had now ceased to be advertisements, had become news,
sought by all the newspapers of this country and of the big cities in Great
Britain. I could have made a large saving by no longer paying my sixty-odd
regular papers for inserting them. But I was looking too far ahead to
blunder into that fatal mistake. Instead, I signed a year's contract
with each of my papers, they guaranteeing to print my advertisements, I
guaranteeing to protect them against loss on libel suits. I organized
a dummy news bureau, and through it got contracts with the telegraph
companies. Thus insured against the cutting of my communications with the
public, I was ready for the real campaign.

It began with my "History of the National Coal Company." I need not repeat
that famous history here. I need recall only the main points--how I proved
that the common stock was actually worth less than two dollars a share,
that the bonds were worth less than twenty-five dollars in the hundred,
that both stock and bonds were illegal; my detailed recital of the crimes
of Roebuck, Melville and Langdon in wrecking mining properties, in wrecking
coal railways, in ejecting American labor and substituting helots from
eastern Europe; how they had swindled and lied and bribed; how they had
twisted the books of the companies, how they were planning to unload the
mass of almost worthless securities at high prices, then to get from under
the market and let the bonds and stocks drop down to where they could buy
them in on terms that would yield them more than two hundred and fifty per
cent, on the actual capital invested. Less and dearer coal; lower wages and
more ignorant laborers; enormous profits absorbed without mercy into a few
pockets.

On the day the seventh chapter of this history appeared, the telegraph
companies notified me that they would transmit no more of my matter. They
feared the consequences in libel suits, explained Moseby, general manager
of one of the companies.

"But I guarantee to protect you," said I. "I will give bond in any amount
you ask."

"We can't take the risk, Mr. Blacklock," replied he. The twinkle in his eye
told me why, and also that he, like every one else in the country except
the clique, was in sympathy with me.

My lawyers found an honest judge, and I got an injunction that compelled
the companies to transmit under my contracts. I suspended the "