An interesting and historic illustration of the Jews’ appreciation of news is to be found in the career of Nathan Rothschild. Rothschild had laid all his plans on the assumption that the Emperor Napoleon, then banished to Elba, was finally eliminated from European affairs. Napoleon unexpectedly returned, and in the “Hundred Days” it seemed as if the Rothschild financial edifice might collapse. Feverishly the financier aided both Prussia and England, and as the Battle of Waterloo approached, no one was more interested in the outcome than he.
Rothschild was a man who shrank from the sight of blood; he was physically a coward, and any sign of violence unnerved him; but so intense was his interest in the battle on which his whole fortune seemed to depend, that he hastened to France, followed the British Army, and when the battle began he hid himself in “some shot-proof nook near Hougomont” where he watched all day the ebb and flow of battle. Just before Napoleon ordered the last desperate charge Rothschild had made up his mind. He said afterward that his exclamation at this point was, “The House of Rothschild has won the battle.”
He hurried from the field, galloped wildly to Brussels, communicating not a word of what he knew to the anxious people he met by the way. Hiring a carriage at an exorbitant price, he galloped away to Ostend. Here a fierce storm was raging on the ocean and no sailor was willing to set out for England, about 20 miles away. Rothschild himself, always afraid of danger, forgot his fear in his visions of the stock market. He offered 500, 800, and at length 1,000 francs to the man who would take him across. But no one dared. Finally one sailor proposed that if Rothschild would pay 2,000 francs into his wife’s hands, he would attempt it.
Half dead the two men reached the English coast, but without rest Rothschild ordered express post and hurried away to London. Whip and spur were not spared on that journey.
There were no telegrams in those days, no swift communication. England was anxious. The rumors were bad. And on the morning of June 20, 1815, when Nathan Rothschild appeared in his usual place at the Stock
