Daily Los Angeles herald., 1878-10-19
STOCK Jobbing and the Law.


stocks during the past two weeks.
The fluctuations have been violent
and disastrous. During that time
Sierra Nevada has sold as high as
$3.50 and as low as S135, Mexican has
risen to 500 and sold down to $40,
and SO on to the end of the chapter.
It is hardly a month since Skae,
the President of Sierra Nevada, was
welcomed as the high priest of fair
play on Pine street. He was the
"white haired boy" that was to be
such a contrast to the Messrs.
Flood & O'Brien. Whenever his
name was referred to, the Affection
ate dIminutive "Johnny" was af-
fixed to the homely patrony mic.
People who had bought Sierra
Nevada at $3.50 a share, and who
expected to see it initiate CONSOLE
dated Virginia in the opening
months of 1875, and go upto $3.50,
were at loss to find epithets of
endorsement for the new Napoleon
OF the Comstock.
Only . few days have elapsed,
and it is now seen that Skae is
chip of the old block. Experienced
dabblers in stocks, when they saw
the announcement that it would
take three or four weeks before the
cross-cuts on the Sierra Nevada
could be opened properly, knew
that purchasers at high figures were
to be Hcinched" numerically. The
situation then resolved itself into
the following: Either the Sierra
Nevada contains u new bonanza or
It does not. Ii it does, those who
bought on margin at $3.50, $275 and
$3.50 are beiug deliberately, and
with malice prepense and afore-
thought, ruined by SkGe; or,
rather, they have been ruined, for
the poor wretches are all cleaned
out by this time. On the other
hand, If it does not contain a boz
nanza, forcing it up to such high
figures, under carefully stimulated
'-pretepces that it would go up much
higher, was piece Of villainy of
an order so atrocious that the
psnitentiary would be a mild
punishment for its perpetrators.
But the significant feature is that
Skae-" Johnny Skae-is even
now cursed with more bitterness
than the old firm of Flood &
O'Brien, who have never allowed
any of the stocks whose paternity
they own to drop as much in a
month as Skae has allowed Sierra
Nevada to sag in week.
People who have seen the wide
spread ruin which has followed
upon such stock manipulations as
have been witnessed during the
past few months, especially if they
have been sufferers, are apt to
grow restive, and to ask if there is
no remedy in the laws for such an
anomalous state of things. We
think the whole history of man.
kind shows that there is none.
Crassus, in the old days OF Rome,
was the very type of the modern
stockjobber, and Crassus .waxed
Incredibly rich, and was highly re.
spectacle and powerful. George
Law blew his South Sea bubble to
prodigious proportions and the law
makers of whole kingdoms helped
instead OF impeding him. The AS
sembly of revolutionary France
tried to put an end to stock -jobbing
on the Paris bourse during the
height of the reign of terror, and
failed. Theirs gives very graphic
picture of the struggle between the
law and the commercial gamblers,
in which the latter triumph ed, as
they always do. With heads roll
ing from the guillotine at the rate
Of hundred day, the stock gam
bier piled his vocation in defiance
OF the most repressive laws. 1t is
true that such matters have come
under much better system in
France and England to-day than
prevails in the United States, but
1t has been through the slow and
almost imperceptible growth of a
salutary public opinion. The laws
which now govern speculation on
the Paris bourse were not one-twen-
tieth part as severe or repressive as |
those which may be- found on
the French Statute books, but the
milder modern enactments are
enforced by salutary public |
opinion, and are, therefore, eff
fectual. 1t Is to something
Of this kind that we must
look to in the United States for a
moral revolution. The statute
book will be powerless to correct
the evil. When the manipulation
ofa "deaI" through which thous-
ands are ruined is pointed out as a
thief and treated as such, specula-
tlon in mining stocks will be re-
duced to the basis of q legitimate
Investment, and not before.
We are still of opinion that the
Comstock lode is on the eve of
heavy and wealth producing de-
vel0pments. The probabilities are