James Fisk, of New York, the dictator of the Erie
Railway,
yr-was assassinated on Sunday by E. Stokes, a Wall-Street dealer, and Erie Stock consequently rose in London 3 per cent. Accord- ing to the American papers, a mistress of Fisk's, a Mrs. Mansfield, had qu#ted him for Stokes, and Fisk had brought the law to bear upon lila rival, arresting him three times, the last time for libel. Stokes, irritated by this, met Fisk in the corridor of the Grand
Central Hotel, fired on him, and inflicted a wound of which he died in a few hours. The murderer was carried off to prison, but so irritated were the people, with whom Fisk, for some reason or other, was popular, that they surrounded the prison and threatened to lynch Stokes, and he was only saved by a military guard. We have commented elsewhere on the extraordinary career of Mr. Fisk, and need only add here that he was believed in New York to have lost nerve, and to be contemplating a compromise with the holders of Erie, an idea for which as yet no foundation has been shown. He was much more likely to have strut* out some new and surpassing coup against his shareholders.
