Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-02-06
BOOSTERS N WALL STREET
They weHt to New York with Two
Thousand Five Hundred Dollars Cap
ltai to Clean Out the Street, and
Got Scooped.

ltaI to Clean Out the Street, and
Got ScOOped.
New York Cor. Philadelphia Tines
Wall street is interested in the
movements of two old men who came
here ffom Indiana about ten DAYS ago.
with the enormous cash capital Of
$500, and with a firm determination "a
clean out the streSt. They are brothers,
tarm-hred, aud when they called al
the office OF a conspicuous broker and
asked for him by name. a shallow.
headed clerk was so unfavorably i'm
pressed BY their outward appearance
that he said the broker was out. The
old farmers sat down with as much
patience as they would have shown in
their own farm house while waiting
Tor a storm to pass away that thoy
might go to the fields again. AT
ter an hour or two the clerk
changed his mind and showed them in.
The destinations Of Wall s~treetover-
power all sorts Of men and women,
who seem at some time or another TO
be struck with this passion as they are.
with love but Of the queer clients
this broker has had, these two old
farmers were the queerest. Like thou.
sands of people all over the country.
they had first become interested
through the advertisements of a Ger.
tain class of irregular Wall street
sharks, whose glowing announcements
I'LL the country press. They had also
taken a New York daily paper and
followed the course of the market.
They had for a year bought and sold
imaginary lots of stocks, paying neither
interest nor commission, but away
out there in their Indiana homes
making tremendous turns in the mar
ket of which the dealers here in the
city were profoundly ignorant With
unlimited credit at the bank of their
own Imagination, they went long of
this and short of that stock, taking in
OF putting out immense blocks and
keeping strict account Of all their
transactions; aud they frankly told
the broker, to whom they confded all
this information, that their profits in
the year we're over a million dollars.
And through such nursing of a delu-
sion they had come to believe that
they could make money in Wall street,
and had gathered together the earn
ings of a lifetime and come Fast to
get rich.
The broker was reluctant to open an
account with them, but they would
not be denied. They were on the bull
side of the market-the outside oper-
ator usually is, being sanguine-and
they bought a little and waited for it
to kite up. They made their head
quarters in the brokers public room
where the customers congregate, and a
strange contrast they presented to the
fashionably- dressed men who lounped
there. They haunted the neiehbor-
hood Of the ticker and watched the
tape at first with buoyant hope, then
with an ill-coneealed eagerness, dashed
with fear, and later with a fascination
that Is always unpleasant to contem-
plate. For somehow, though we have
had for days a rising market, the old
men seemed TO get on the wrong stocks.
and while the other men chatted and
figured up their gains and slipped over
to Delmonico's now and then the old
men stuck to the tape and watched
the relentless little brass arms pranc-
ing up und down, stamping the black
figures on the tape, and stamping them
lower and lower, until their wistful
eyes grew weary and they took a turn
now aud then in the open air Of Wall
or Broad street; and thus the brokers
came TO see the strangers and learn
their story. Yesterday their $500
had dwindled away to $400, and the
younger Of the two, himself a gray
haired man, and as deeply infatuated
as ever, said he was going to send his
brother home. He was too old and
bothersome and interfersd with his
plans. Alone, he said he could have
his own way and would come out all
right yet. And even the giddy
brokers experience a passing qualm at
this, for they know how it will end.
But sometimes oven the sharp ones
get seeoped. There is a Spectator
in stocks whose name is known ali
over the world. He had a confidential
clerk, a sharp fellow, to whom he had
given, from time to time, points, so
that the clerk, while serving his master
well, might make a little for himself
Ia this way the clerk accumulated
about $4,000. The other day the
big Spectator discovered that his
clerk was treacherOus. He didn't
make a row about it, nor bewail the
decadence Of honesty, nor even with
a sad face give the erring clerk A
moral lecture and plead with him to
reform but he gave him points. and
the unsuspecting clerk found. when
IT was too late, that the points all went
against him, and his $4,000 had
passed irtO his employers pocket.
The big Spectator is always practical.