Morning journal and courier., 1881-10-14
sFriday, Morning, Oct. IA, 1881.
ssCORNERING.,, ss

!
 |. So many things have been 'cornered" this year that the attention of the public has been unusually drawn to this method of getting rich and also of getting poor. The recent "cornering'' of the cotton market in Liver pool has led to discussion in England regard | ing the advisability of action by Parliament to restrict the buying and sailing of sfu- lures" and to prevent such disastrous opera l tions. A similar form of bold gambling with I grain in Chicago has led to the discovery that there is already law against it in the State of Illinois, which only needs to be rigidly en- forced to put stop to the business. Judge Jameson, of Chicago, has taken occasion to | bring the statute in question to the attention of the grand jury of Cook county, and to charge that body with the dnty of doing it's part toward the. enforcement of the law. The law reads as follows: Whoever contracts to have or give the option to sell or buy at future time any grain or other commodity, stock of any railroad or other corporation, or gold, or forestalls the market by spreading false rumors to influence the price of con- modities therein, or corners the market, or tries to do so in relation to any of such com
 
 more than $1 ,0oO, or confined in the county jail not exceeding one year, or both" Judge Jameson said in h1s charge
 'fThe crimes indicated are being committed It imports much that the validity of our statute and its suficiency to reach the guilty parties should be early tested. If hespread of gambling has infected our business men the consequences cannot but be disastrous. The course of business, instead of proceed ing quietly and healthily, will become broken by fits of fever and panic; unlawful gains will be preferred to the slow profits of legit- innate trade; our farmers, partak1ng of the prevalent spirit, will hold back their crops in expectation of corner processes, borrowing money on mortgage to carry on their opera tions, instead of realizing by the sales of farm products. It is said that these phe- nomena are already apparent, and they are charged to be the effects of violation of the law. I will only add that it is not your duty to seek inquisitorially for evidence that crimes have been committed. Should evi- dence come to you through the regular chan nels your duty will be to consider it. and act fearlessly and promptly to vindicate the laws"
 We do not imagine that many of the grain ''cornerers" will be prosecuted, and there is room for difference of opinion whether any attempt to prevent by law speculation in the necessaries of life would be successful. Such attempts have often been made and have as often failed. And even if ''corners'' could be suppressed by legislation prece- dent very harmful in its consequences to all legitimate and honest trade would then have been established. One sumptuary law leads up to another. If the State may interpose to stop corners in wheat and cotton, 1t may also fix the price of bread and cloth, and in- l terfere in any other way with the busi ness of | the people From this point of view about l the only comfort there is for those who suf- fer by ''corners' is the fact that more money l is lost than made in such enterprises.