Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-04-07
Gold and Stock specuiations.
How Contraband News is sent from Washington.

| " "~UiAStou, Is uuacQualnIeQ with the whole
theory and practice of gold and stock specu-
la'ion but readers in other quarters NAV en-
JOY more happy ignorance and NAV accord
ingly have been somewhat mystifved yester-
day by the demonstrations proceeding and at
| tending the passage of the Gold bill
Whether in gold or stocks, everything in
Wall street depends upon having the earliest
news; and consequently there is not a leadinp
stock. dealing firm in New York that does not
have from one to half dozen correspondents
| in Washington, charged to spare no pains or
expense in furnishing them by telegraph, and
| generally in cipher, the earliest intelligence
| of any success or disaster in the field, any i'm
portant action of the Treasury Department.
any rumor offoreign eomplications-in short,
anything likely to affect the hopes or fears of
the community, which find their barometer,
in the wavering of the gold market.
| These correspondents are generally men
! supposed to have the confidence of high Off
Gals, or access to early dispatches; and, for
obvious reasons, their engagement is kept as
| secret as possible. Last summer, ore New
l DIRK banking house, in boastful moment
claimed that it could always have news within
an hour after the President had it: and
another was said to have numbered among its
correspondents the chief of staff of a great
| army in the field.
Of course the services of such men are not
enlisted without g consideration" proper
tionate at once to the risks they run in fur
nishing the desired news, and to the nature
and accuracy of the news itself In general
this consideration depends on what is
made out of the information Some are
promised fixed share of the profits; others
are simply let in, as the phrase goes, for
fifty or hundred thousand dollars, in any
| h.
furnish.
Thus-news comes of great disaster 1t
will shock public confidence, and send gold
up two, three, five, even ten per cent. One
| OF these correspondents OF great New FORK
| stock-operating house gets it a few hours be-
| fore it becomes public. He instantly pre-
pares some previously agreed upon dispatch
-" Mary is very much worse, and the doctor
| gives the case up " or " John is very ill and
will not be able to travel for some days yet :"
and telegraphs this innocent looking mes
sage not to the firm in New York, for that
would arouse suspicion, if there were a GEN.
sor at the telegraph office, but to the private
address of some one of its members, or to the
confidential clerk, or even, in some cases, to
| the wife of some one of the house. They be-
gin buying gold at once, cautiously and
through as many third parties as possible, to
other purchases, make one of fifty or hun
| dred thousand for the man who has furnished
| the news.
Next day, or perhaps within few hours
| the news gets out, and gold goes up, say five
! per cent. Ii the correspondent has been ''let
| IN tor hundred thousand, he pockets five
| thousand dollars as his share of the operation
Occasionally one of these correspondents
| makes such lucky strike-much more often
he furnishes news for weeks and months with
out its having such an effect Oh the market as
to bring him the merest dribblets of profits
But the chance of something " brilliant" has
its tacinations, and the stOck-operators have
no difficulty in inducing well-informed people
to furnish them all the news they get
These men haunt every lobby and commit
tee room. A conference committee reaches
| conclusion on some important question, af-
| fecting gold or Stocks or whiskey, or any
| other article of speculation. They imagine
| 1t a profound secret; and are startled a day
| or two afterward, to find that some operator
| in New York had it within few hours after
| its adoption, and that fortune has been made
out of the intelligence. The Supreme court
makes deci5ion-before it is announced, a
"ring" in New York has operated OF its eff
| feet, and made enough to set every one con-
nected with it up in the world. A bureau of
| the government resolves to recommend a tax
| on a particular article-before the recon-
| mendation reaches Congress, certain parties
| IN New York have bought up all of the art
icle they can possibly get and when the rise
| comes they pocket the proceeds.
1t seems utterly impossible to prevent this.
When news of important battles is coming in
the government has sometimes attempted it,
| but the attempt was as Idle as it was foolish
A censor has been established at the tele-
graph office, and he has wisely suppressed ev-
erythlng saying word about the war; But
q servant girl comes in with a hurried scrawl
on torn sheet of delicately scented French
paper, in a ladys hand:
'sGeo. II. Montgomery, Fifth Avenue Hotel, New
York. Do come home at once, Mary cannot live
| twenty-four hours longer. Laura Montgomery
How can he stop that? But Geo. Fl.
Montgomery" is myth and Mary's illness
means Hookers defeat, and the hotel clerk
has been instructed to send any such dispatch
by the speediest means to somebody's Bank
down town; and the firm makes the money,
and the Government censor keeps blinking
like an owl over the dispatches, and rigidly
stopping 'everything relating to the war"
and Mr.. Stanton feEcitates himself over hay
ing made those newspaper pests send their
accounts by mail rather than by telegraph
Glow little sense it takes to run a Govern.
ment," said some wise mani
Once, during last summer, leading news
paper editor got disguised, ard determined
that the gold gamblers should not monopo-
lie all the early news. So lie went into the
cipher business too, but being rather raw at
1t, his first effort was not quite so good as
some subsequent ones. He forwarded the CT
pher to his leading Washington correspondent.
Pretty soon the operators in his city, who
kno do tod
were astonished at receiving for him this dis
patch from Washington:
ssHave sold your fifteen thousand bushels of corn
at 35. The market looks squaly.''
His paper announced, the next morning,
that the main body of Lees army had crossed
the MARYLAND line, and was moving into Penn
sylvania; and his chief rival got very mad
and complained to the War Department that
he was bribing the telegraph company but
it was whispered about among his friends that
so and so was neglecting his business and 60
ing into very rash speculations, and - he
changed his cipher!
But [ am wandering from the speculations
over the Gold bill, which I set out to de-
scribe. The happy people who know nothing
about the gold market may not know that
money may be made on fall in gold or
stocks as well as on rise. Suppose you
know that something, not now public, is 60
ing to transpire in day or two that will put
gold down. You "sell short;' that is to say,
you get contract with a man who wants
gold, to furnish him so many thousand at the
present price, deliverable in three or four
days. or at whatever time agreed upon when
you feel certain that gold will be lower. Say
gold is now Leo. Three days hence, On the
strength of this news you have had in ad-
- n