Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1876-12-01
A City Of qamblers.

A City of Gamblers.
Everything seems to be subordinated
to the mining stocks and to speculation
in mining. Here they are not satisfied
with one board, but must have three, al
though the population of San Francisco
is barely 276,000. There is the Pacific
Board, the California Board and the San
Francisco Board, each of which has its
Stock Exchange and is independent Of
the others. This is pretty much as If
there should be in New York city an At.
lantic Stock Exchange and New York
City Stock Exchange. But though the
business done in Gotham represents IL
population of over 2,000,000, one Stock
Exchange has hitherto been found amply
sufficient. 1t is obvious from this one
fact that gambling in mining shares must
be very general pursuit, and indeed IL
is. The man who resolutely confines
himself to the strict channels of his i'm.
mediate business is looked upon by the
community with those mingled feelings
of contempt and admiration which a
thorough drunkard feels for tee.
total friend. He cnVies his vigorous
health, and admires the calm blood which
courses through the unfevered veins,
yet, after all, he thinks the man is milk
sop, too cowardly to know the joys of
Bacchus. So here in San Francisco every
body takes n nibble at the treacherous
bait. The merchant downtown, whose
capital is Just sufficient for his importing
business, is on the sly bearing Ophir,
while the wife of his bosom has bought
the same stock for rise. His clerks are
all embarked on small speculative ships
of the same kind, and condemn them
selves to voluntary poverty in hopes of
making a great raise and then going into
business for themselves. Even the very
cook in the kitchen is enabled, through
the discriminating business tact of some
brokers, to share in the delirious dance,
for with so small Il sum as q dollar one
can venture in.
The method by which the single dol
lars of the poorest classes of the com
munity are raked in by the sharks of
Liederdorff and California streets is the
familiar put and call of Wall and Broad
in our delightful city. Here you can
have put or call upon a single share
of Ophir or any other stock in the mar
ket for one dollar. The consequence is,
that the minds of almost the entire adult
population are riveted upon mining
stocks. Bulletins of the prices current
are circulated every half hour, exposed
in all the brokers' offices and in all the
money exchanges, and sent to all the
leading hotels. The large broking of
fees, where business is done on a grand
scale, are furnished with enormous black
boards, on which the different stocks are
painted in leglble white characters, and
the fluctuations are marked in chalk every
hour. In front of these offices hundreds
of men gather every day, coming as early
rs nine o'clock and lingering until the
final quotations are marked, when they
slowly retire. Sometimes, when there is
great excitement in the mining shares,
there are thousands of such loiterers, the
sidewalks are choked, and to pass on one
must walk in the street itself among the
bustling vehicles. They are essentially
queer crowd composed of spectators
and loafers. Not that there is any in
trinsc difference between them, for the
speculator of this character is simply a
loafer who has raised stake and is
awaiting results, and the loafer is a spec
ulator who is penniless and is awaiting
a stake from some fortunate comrade.
You may know easily the men who are
in luck from those who are out. The
former have decent habiliments and
heavy watch-chains of good quartz in
broad setting; the latter are clad in rusty
Western cloth from which the dye has
faded, leaving the color an indescribable
kind of purple. They have neither
watches nor watch. chains, and dinner is
a problem to be solved either by abun-
dant cheek or by the spirit of camaaderie
which such a pursuit is calculated to
evolve. There they stand, the lucky and
the penniless in rain or sunshine, during
the livelong day, watching that miserable
speculative pot boiling. So long as they
can make a lucky hit or two, or can bor-
row from others, they continue this ex-
traordinary kind of life. When they are
what is emphatically called "played
out, the enterprising seek the mines and
the shiftless drift into crime.
This is evidently worse than the lotter-
les, for with them the gamblers energies
are not paralyzed, and he can work for his
living and buy lottery tickets, too. But
here it is not so. The mere fact that a
man has got put upon some favorite
stock seems to entitle him in his own
mind to positive respite from any act
i've occupation until the turn is decided
for or against him.-San Francisco Cor.
~ Y. Times.