BLACK FRIDAY, a term applied to several Fridays upon which serious upheavals or crises occurred. The outstanding financial Black Fridays are: (I) May I I, 1866, when the bank ing house of Overend and Gurney, of London, failed, resulting in widespread business and financial distress. (2) Sept. 24, 1869, the American Black Friday. For some time the balance of trade been setting steadily against the United States and gold was being drained out of the country in tremendous amounts. So acute had conditions become that the U.S. Treasury had even discontinued the sale of gold. Many had gone "short" on gold and this suggested to Jay Gould and his associate, James Fisk, an opportunity to corner the available gold supply, engineer a "bull market" and compel the "shorts" to cover at high prices. In less than a month the price of gold was pushed up from to 1621, which culminating price was reached on Black Friday and brought about a crisis in the securities market. The Govern ment was largely responsible for breaking the corner by the purchase of $4,000,000 of its bonds with gold.