America 1881: They Call Me Legend

Chapter 479 Electrocution
The plunge in the stock prices of the two railroad companies, along with Carlyle's speech, had a ripple effect on Wall Street.

Investors' long-standing worries finally burst out like a flood that burst a levee and became out of control.

They also began to sell their stocks.

For a while, the sky over Wall Street was jittery.

Secretary of State WQ Gresham (WQ Gresham) saw the news in the newspaper, and immediately hurled a rare curse.

He hurriedly broke into the office of the Minister of Finance, accusing his colleague of not being able to speak brains, with a mouth like a clepsydra, telling the public all the information that should not be disclosed without discussion, which is really not like a mature politician. out of things.

However, the Minister of Finance immediately retorted, saying that he was not a politician in the first place, and he was ashamed to be compared with some well-dressed beasts. The people have the right to know, especially when their property is in danger.

The two old men refused to give in to each other, and finally made a quarrel with President Cleveland.

Cleveland leaned on his chair, leaned on his forehead, and watched the two old men with strong fighting spirit quarrel, physically and mentally exhausted.

A split in the Democratic Party seems inevitable.

In the end, Treasury Secretary Carlyle walked away.

"What a stubborn idiot!" Grisham muttered privately, looking at Carlisle's back.

He then turned to the president and said a little anxiously:

"Cleveland, you should do something! Or we're screwed!"

Cleveland looked at his partner with a tired look on his face.

How could he not know this.

The Minister of Finance chosen by himself, and the disasters caused by him, he has to take care of himself no matter what.

So two days later, the president spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill:

"... Some media made a big fuss about the motives of the country's financial managers, claiming that the Ministry of Finance and the government have been thinking about it, intending to abolish gold and find another way to exchange paper money. I have seriously refuted such rumors from time to time. Now It seems that it is not superfluous to refute the rumors, because the public is too easy to believe the words of the media.”

Cleveland's original intention was to appease the emotions of the people.

But his speech and wording were as euphemistic and obscure as ever, which didn't have much effect.

The NYSE disaster continues.

First the railroads, then other manufactures, the market was in a panic.

Two weeks after the president's speech, the stock market crashed.

The first bankrupt hapless guy also appeared.

As one of the leading stocks in the rope industry on the New York Stock Exchange, the bankruptcy of National Rope Company, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with this stock market crash.

Its bankruptcy was mainly due to the fact that it had expanded too fast before and could not repay its debts after a sharp change in market supply.

This company now has no ambition to dominate the country, but in the end it just ended up closing down.

But its bankruptcy also sounded the clarion call for the bankruptcy of many enterprises.

The bears were running around telling each other, playing their crowns and celebrating.

They have met the good times they haven't seen in many years, and it's time to make up for the US government and make a windfall.

But at this time, Chen Jianqiu, who had already stayed out of the matter, felt relaxed.

He has spun off the railway industry with the highest risk in his hands, and whether it is Sanjiang Bank or the arms industry, they are both big businesses and low-risk operations, and they are ready to face the next shock.

Chen Jianqiu told Silas, Dylan and Okafor:

It is not an instant thing for people to starve to death. They will first become pale and emaciated, malnourished, and then gradually reach a critical point and die.

So, let the bullet fly for a while first.

He now has something to do in another battleground.

Edison is now also a bag of heads.

Morgan has given him an ultimatum. If he can't let his direct current beat alternating current, then investors will give up direct current completely, and Edison himself has to obediently get out of the newly established general electric army.

After deliberation, Edison decided to return to his best performance.

And today is the day he performs.

One or two hundred people were invited to the square in front of the New York State Penitentiary to watch the execution of a condemned inmate named Francis Kelham.

Among these people, there are journalists, lawyers, politicians, and of course ordinary citizens.

I don't know whether it was Edison's intention or the negligence of his assistants, but Chen Jianqiu was also invited.

When everyone rushed to the square one after another, they found that the gallows did not appear, but a chair with a rather peculiar shape was replaced.

The chair was covered with exposed electrical wires, and straps were attached to the back and handles of the chair to secure the hands and neck of the prisoner.

There are three joysticks behind the chair, and a thick wire leads out from under the chair and is connected to a transformer and generator not far away.

Chen Jianqiu looked familiar at the generator set.

It was a product of their Roswell Electric Company, and somehow it fell into Edison's hands.

He invented an electric chair that used alternating current, and then paid an unknown amount of money to a judge in New York to change the execution method of the hapless murderer from hanging to electrocution.

He intends to use this to demonstrate the dangers of alternating current, preferably by throwing a psychological shadow over the townspeople.

After a while, the prison guards escorted Kelham out of the prison gate and fixed him in the electric chair.

Edison did not appear in person this time, but asked one of his engineers, Harold Brown, who was even more perverted than him, to carry out the smearing work for him.

At this time, he was already standing by the switch, eager to try it.

The prison guards sealed Kellum's mouth, said that something like an iron ring was connected to his head, and then put the sack on it.

When everything was ready, Brown pulled the switch.

The current of 300V voltage flows through the wire and flows to the electric chair.

Kelham began to tremble all over, and his movements were so huge that he almost fell to the ground with the chair and him.

The electric shock lasted for more than ten seconds.

The condemned prisoner seemed to be quiet.

Brown walked from the switch to the electric chair.

He said loudly to the people below: "This electric chair uses alternating current. As you can see, alternating current is very dangerous and can even kill people in just a dozen seconds."

His next sentence was originally: "Direct current is much safer than alternating current."

But before Brown could say it, he was interrupted.

A man below pointed to Kelham's "corpse" in the electric chair and exclaimed:
"He's not dead yet!"

With a start, Brown looked at Kelham who was not far away from him.

This guy's body is still moving, and it's not a convulsion after being electrified.

"Damn it, start the motor!" a prison guard whispered to Brown. "We need to electrocute him immediately!"

Brown ran to the switch and pulled it.

Callum began to twitch again.

But this time, his exposed skin began to turn red, and smoke began to come out of his body.

An extremely pungent burnt smell wafted from the electric chair.

The onlookers standing in the front row covered their noses and ran away; some even started to vomit.

The second motor lasted for tens of seconds.

Kellum was terribly dead, he was completely electrocuted.

"As you can see, AC is extremely dangerous, it"

He didn't finish his sentence again, and was interrupted again.

However, people's focus is not on the AC ear, but on Brown himself:

"My God! What have you done, it's so cruel!"

"You are simply a devil, how could you research such a cruel thing! This is against humanitarianism!"

The gentlemen under the stage frowned and began to criticize Brown on the stage.

From their point of view, this is simply abuse!In such a civilized America, such a thing should not appear!

Chen Jianqiu did not join the ranks of scolding.

His eyes were fixed on the electric chair.

"Maybe the voltage is low, and there is no fatal blow." He thought of the fat man hanging on the Oklahoma barbed wire before, and said to himself.

"If there is a chance, we can get one and send it to the Elizabeth Mental Hospital."

(End of this chapter)