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AN EVENTFUL CAREER. The Ups and Downs of Henry Clews' Life. Henry Clews, the prominent operator of Wall street, is English by birth, though for many years resident here. Indebted wholly to himself for his prosperity, he is unquesMonably a very capable financier and remarkable for commercial insight, management, power of combination and extraordinary mental resources. Years ago he was. I am told, a dealer in ready made clothing and got so much money that, with larger views and added experience, he conceived himself to be fitted for a higher career. He accordingly disposed of his raimental trade and went into banking. This was during the civil war and his shrewd operations in gold and stocks soon brought him into notice and greatly increased his wealth. He advertised widely, cultivated newspaper men and became known throughout the land, his opinions, movements and actions being constantly chronicled. On this account many men in Wall street regarded him as in a certain way meretricious, as a financier whose trumpet had been blown too loud and too long for the possession of marked ability. Thoy did not hesitate to pronounce him a sham and to predict his early downfall. He certainly was very ambitious and particularly fond of being exploited by journalists of the cheaper sort, who wore believed to borrow money of him, which they found it inconvenient to pay and for which he never asked. When the monetary reaction of 1873 came Henry Clews & Co. was one of the various houses that were forced to suspend. Then his detractors said, all in chorus, told you so," and were sure that nothing more would be heard of him. He had considered himself worth $5,000,000 at 10 o'clock in the morning and before 3 he was bankrupt. He had small hope himself that he would recover from his failure, but circumstances, aided by good management, favored him and in a few years he had paid all his debts, dollar for dollar, and stood fairly before and with the world again. Henry Clews is once more a big operator in oil, grain and provisions, as well as stocks and bonds, and seems to be singu. larly acute and sagacious. He does not court the press as much as he did, but he shows more capacity and steadiness than formerly and is now accounted a leader in the street. He married some time ago a pretty Kentuckian considerably younger than himself and appears at fifty to be firmly established in fináncial and social success. He is one of the men who have defied augury.