The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-07
THE ROUND GAME OF SPECULATION.

safest, it is q game in which there is more of
chance than people are apt to fancy. If we
ask illustrations of this, we have only to look
around or before us. Around us we see so
many cases Of misfortune and mismanage-
ment that one ceases to wonder at the trem-
bling sensibility of capital. Looking forward
even political optimists may find in the posi-
bilities of the future fresh justification of its
uneasiness. We have no wish to take an
over-gloomy view of things, nor do we pre-
tend that they are much worse now than they
have been before and will be again. But word
of caution is much in season at present as it is
ever likely to be. The loss of the few is often
the gain of the many, and doubtless it is for
tunate for the world that investors should
not be more sensitive than they are to the
hazards on which they stake their much
priced money. We are told that, if we only
knew the fragility of the framework on which
our bodies hang, we should never dare to set
them in motion; and assuredy, if men exer-
cised in the disposal of their fortunes a pru-
dence proportionate to that which often ac-
tuates them in the merest trihes, half the
capital of the world would permanently stag
nate Capitalists would literally invest their
economies in the land, and the precious
metals would disappear from circulation in
the good old Oriental fashion. We habitually
see the man who has qualms about playing
whist at sixpenny points, cut into the round
game of speculation with his thousands with
far fewer searchings of heart, spinning his
hasty faith to caprice tradition, or the Off
handed counsels of some confident friend.
Most of us accept in theory the maxim that
high interest means bad security, and from
that we fallaciously argue to the converse of
the proposiGon-that the lower the interest
the more perfect the security! Doubtless
there is much truth in this, and the rule is
good one rs far as it goes; but, in the first
place, it is habtually pushed too far; in the
second, its advocates ignore the numerous
exceptions that prove it. Most men divide
investments, for all practical purposes, into
two broad classes - those returning great
dividends, and implying for the most part
the chance of a corresponding rise or fall,
hinging on the contingencies on which
speculation turns; and those others where the
interest is moderate, and the integrity of the
principal is supposed to all intents and pur-
poses to be guaranteed. If they make up
their minds to be content with modest re-
turns, if they only satisfy themselves that the
returns really are modest, it is enough for
them. They set themselves to enjoy their
pittance with that untroubled tranquility
which is superior to argument, and more pre-
cious than all riches.
\ Few people perhaps will be found to pro
fess in so many words their faith in absolute
securities and Notwithstanding principals,
but the great bulk of cautious investors
vidual choice were unimpeachable Often
with the most prudent intentions
they deceive themselves in happy innocence
and perfect good faith. Frequently they are
the hapless victims of circumstances which no
human sagacity could have foreseen or con-
trolled. Constantly they count only first
causes and study direct effects, forgetting
thnt the roots of all manner of investments
intertwine; that incidents the most remote
may be dragging at the fibres, and influences
the most unsuspected blighting the growth
Many people, on the strength of a prosperity
of some twenty years, had ceased to remember
that the French Emperor was mortal, and that
his empire might one day cease to be. Doubt
less there was much disagreeable expression of
surprise the other day at the promiscu-
GUS droop in most English securities In
vestors whose hard necessities constrained
them to realize were Mortified to find them
selves so heavily mulcted. Why sinister
rumors as to Frenchmans health, OF spasmS
on the paltry Bourse Of Vienna, should inlu
ence SO seriously their holdings in British
banks and railways, they were at a loss to
conceive. Even to men who look further,
and can vaguely trace the relations of cause
and effect, there was something of startling
surprise when it was brought home to them
how much may hang on the life of single
man-that man being the incarnation of per
sonal government in highly advanced civil
there is enough to crafty the most inordinat'
vanity in the idea that the bulletins of tn
Bourses of the world follow those issued from
his sick-room; that each sleepless night, eacl
hour of pain he suffers, falls in turn
to the lot of thousands Of unlucly vic
Tins bound to a profound sympath
with him by the fact that their fortunes ar
pinned to his. The wild sales and unreason
ing depreciation following on events like tn
Emperor's illness come of the panic which
very far from prudence. Adding the chance
of the alarm being as premature as it prove
to be, and of things going smoothly in tn
case of his death, to the certainty that poss
BILE wars and troubles had already been libC
rally discounted, it was clear that the pani,
stricken were finging their property ava!
But what advantage does that conviction brin
to you if you are forced into the market wit
them? You may keep your head while a
around are giddy, and may count the ode
with unfaltering presence of mind. 81
you are q unit of body, and are helpless a
cordngly. Your investment once made, yc
! have ceased to be free agent and have ca
your property on the troubled waters of huma
prejudice and passion. 1t is true, you mi
fish it to shore at any moment, if yc
will, but only to find 1t pitifully shrunkt
Scarcely any of us who have anything at stat
escaped the wash of the great panic wave tn
sureed up the other day from the Pla
Vivienne Some were nearer its vortex thG
Others, and not few must have been suck'
down. There are investments and inves
ments There are many in which there is @
obvious element Of uncertainty, but so co
trolled and neutralizea by the promise
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