Morning journal and courier., 1882-05-05
Price Four Cents.

enormous gambling rings known as the stock, cotton and produce exchanges. The speculative public unquestionably pays the piper. Our brokers are notorious for high living and extraVagance of every kind, and 1t may be taken for granted that at the lowest figures their earnings will average 5000 year. Fourteen thousand brokers at s, 900 a year makes total of S7O, O,OOO, 900, which represents the sum paid annually to New York brokers by country gamblers for the pleasure of gambling. An experienced bro ker, who has large dealings with the South, explained the recent high price of cotton by the fact that in some southern communities every man, woman and child had been specu- lating in cotton. In the West the same thing is true of grain. People too poor to lose more than S5 at a time club together and di- vide the profits or share the loss, generally the latter, These are the people who enable the New York broker to buy February straw berries.
 Some of the lambs, infact, suppose, the majority, believe that the particular broker to whom they entrust the sum they have re- solved to devote to gambling (resolving also, of course, that if it is lost nothing shall ever tempt them to gamble again, is sharp indi- vidual, brighter and sharper than any of the other brokers, who will be sure to know how the market is going The fact is that the brightest broker that ever speculated is no
 
 of the oldest brokers in the business, one of whom has been dealing in cotton for thirty years, have told me that nothing is more cer- tain in that business than that sagacity, shrewdness and experience go for absolutely nothing in cotton grain speculation Gases were cited of several men who, having passed years in compiling elaborate tables showing the fluctuations of cotton, hour by hour, for periods of years, had speculated upon the de- auctions reached and lost every cent by this system faster than if they had trusted to in- spiration. Not dozen men are known to have retired from cotton exchange specuia- tion with fortunes. Fortunes are made there every day or two, but they are lost just as quickly. If the spectators on the spot have so little chance what chance have the outside spectators, who have to do all their gamb- ling through others?
 So much is written just now about gamb- ling in cotton and grain that 1t may not be without interest to describe briefly the ma chinery for speculating in these staples, and the meaning of the exchange slang, which makes market reports unintel- ligible to most persons. The cotton exchange was organized in 1871. There are four ''calls'' day, 'eall" being the name for a short auction at which members of the eI- change bid on cotton, the price obtained go- ing forth as the official price of the exchange. Speculating is done ia lots Of 100 bales. The charge which broker makes for ''turn,' that is, buying and selling 100 bales, Is S25. Cotton is quoted at so many cents and hun dredths of a cent pound To-day's quota ton is .66, each hundredth of cent being called point" The margin required for speculation is S225; a change of one point falls 50 points, or half cent pound, it wipes out the en- tire S225 margin and closes the transaction, leaving the speculator $25 ID debt for the commission on the turn" A lively day in the cotton exchange is when cotton huctuates more than 10 points tst week it fell in one day 8 points. On the quietest day of the year it may not vary three points. The ''scalper," as the professional broker speculator is called, watches the mar ket on a spot as a cat watches 8 mouse When the market goes up or down enough points to enable him to make 20 or 30 dol lars he closes the transaction and pockets his money Speculation in March cotton" April cotton" etc, means that you sell or buy cotton which you agree to deliver or re- ceive at such price at any time during March or April. Cotton is often sold in this way long before it is grown, and the same is true of wheat. Year cotton" or tyear wheat" means that it can be delivered or called for any time during the whole year
 On the produce exchange No. red winter wheat is the great staple of speculation All transactions are made upon the basis of g, 900 bushels, just as in the cotton exchange 100 bales is the unit. The margin required by brokers is $+OO, or five cents a bushel and S2O is charged for making the turn" lively day on the exchange Is when wheat varies in value more than two cents bushel. We have never known a greater huctuation in value than five cents in one day. But in Chicago they have livelier times last Monday wheat was worth S1.22k a bushel and on Tuesday it was S1 29a. Chicago sometimes buys and sells 50, 900, 900 bushels of wheat in day, and our last crop of wheat was only 38O, 900, GOO bushels. Comment is needless.