Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-11-30
STOCK GAMBLING.

The newspapers Of the business metrop-
oils are reading those who peruse then
some very good and much needed lecture
suggested by the recent great stock-gam
bling operations. Such "A smashing OF for
tunes, blasting of hopes, and wrecking Of
men mentally and physically as follows
one of these tornadoes, furnishes an APP
propriate occasion to warn all from rush
ing into them and other like games of
chance in the hurry to become rich. A
few rich men, or these behind the scenes,
control the management, while those Of
smaller means who venture are entirely at
the sport of chance, but pretty sure if they
continue to try their luck any length of
time to be in the end stripped of property
and bankrupt. The New York Times
gives some information and good advice
in connection with this matter:
THE business of buying and selling stocks
is a perfectly reputable one. Every business
community must have a market where its Sc
curities can be purchased and sold. 1t is also
a legitimate occupation or speculation for a
capitalist to purchase securities merely with
the view of sale. The dangers Of the stock
market, however, are in the easy money-lend-
ing and in the betting on chances. No money
lending in the world is so seductive and peril
Gus to the inexperienced as the system of
margin of the broker. The Jew of the
Middle Ages, supplying the gamester of for
tune, might be more usurious; he could not
lie half SO tempting. All the usual ceremo-
MES which make ordinary borrowing of
money somewhat Of a difficulty, are here dis
pensed with. The innocent young borrower
deposits his thousand dollars with his
broker, with his order, who makes his pur-
chase of ten thousand dollars or more, lend
ing him small fortune with stroke of his
pen. He hears nothing of interest, securities,
or repayment. Suddenly the stock rises the
broker sells, and the young borrower finds
himself couple Of thousand dollars richer,
having done nothing, and scarcely having
given thought to his venture. He now bor
rows again. still larger sum. All is serene
and pleasant; the lender is smiling and accom-
modating. Tens of thousands pass between
them, and the innocent young borrower hard
ly is conscious of it. At length a fall of
values begins; the leader demands higher
margins; the borrowers property meits like
the snow he cannot make good the proper
lion demanded; he asks for time the broker,
lately SO agreeable, is stern and inexorable,
and soon, with stroke Of the pen, all the
hard earnings OF the young Spectator sink
INTO the pit OF Wall street speculation, and he
goes forth poorer and perhaps wiser man.
Perhaps, If young man Of some intelli-
gence, he had fancied he could Judge before
hand OF the values Of securities as wisely as
his elders, but he now recognizes that the
shifts OF the market in no way depended on
real values, but on thousand elements of
which he Is ignorant as he would be at Baden.
Baden of what carries the ball to youoe or
nor. And he sees also that his little bark is
nothing amid these immense ships, which NAV
crush him or carry him in tow, as they
choose. But this 10 not the worst feature OF
stock speculation. The most genine gambling
is that familiar operation, the buying or sell
ing ''short: J" the purchasing or parting viii
what man has not, on a bet upon its value
some time ahead. 1t is simply and solel,
gambling. Whoever succeeds in 1t 10 nothing
but gambler; whoever fails has no consola
ton. He ought to fail. The true remedy fol
the evils of the Stock Board is a purer public
opinion. Parents and teachers and preachers
throughout the country should try to Undue
the young with the idea that no one has the
right to be rich except by bard work. Patien,
not sharp speculation, should be in
culcated a. the means Of gaining fortune.
A boy should be taught that be is not worth