Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-06-02
Women ~ Gamblers,

Chicago has been the first place, ap-
parently to provide regular accommo-
dalton for those women who gain their
livelihood by specializing or the rise and
fall in the cost Of provisions. There, if we
may trust the reporters, there is a reg
ular place set aside for the resort Of
women so engaged. 1t is not a Stock
Exchange, but a Provision Dealers Ex-
change. One lady is said to have
made G1,600 sterling on 1.-THE corn
corner of January. Another has
''planked her bottom dollar" on the
May wheat; a third is specializing deeply
in pork and in Cultures in hog-pro-
ducts" The reporters say that this
occupation has a curious effect on the
countenances of the women who fire.
quent this Exchange. They lose the
mobility of feature and expression
which is one of the great charms of
women, and don the mask of impenetra-
bility peculiar to the man of business,
whose great object it is to betray
for a moment how things are going with
him. Now, SO far as we know, there is
no reason whatever, except the prepos-
sessions of the existing committees of
the various exchanges of Europe and
the West, why women should not be
admitted freely to all these exchanges,
and it is pretty certain that, at a time
when the restrictions which exclude
them from other professions are being
one by one removed, no legal restriction
to exclude them from this profession is
likely to be imposed.
The late Lord Beaconsfield has told
us what he thought of speculative
women in the clever little sketch of
"Lady BERTHE and Bellair," who pre-
tends to wish to go on a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, but is really plunged heart
and soul into railroad speculation, and
who faints on hearing that ''the narrow
gauge has won" Lord Beaconsfield's
verdict, delivered as usual through his
favorite oracle Sidonia, is: sShe posters
me with her letters, but 1 do not like
feminine finance; and perhaps there
was more reason for this Judgment than
there was for most of Mr. Disraeli's cpl
grammatic and sententious decisions.
Undoubtedly, of all careers which are
most likely to unsex women, that of
stalking considerable stakes on the re-
suits Of a complicated series of dubious
commercial events seems to us the
most likely to produce that effect. Inn
personal e~xcitements, which depend for
their interest on heavy pecuniary risks,
can hardly be really good for any
human being at all, certainly they do
least harm to those who have tho least
susceptibility to finer feelings, who are
most im%personal in the whole attitude
of their mind, who are nearest tn intel
lectual engines and furthest removed
from the life of the affections. VS. have
known many men who could run great
pecuniary risks with little or 20 dis
turbance of their best personal lift-and
in deprecating these gambling cc:,mer-
cial pursuits as morally dangerous, we
must not be understood to express any
doubt that the equalization of prices
which results from calm and wise spccu-
lation on a sound basis of capital in the
upward and downward movements of
stocks and commodities, is of great nd
vantage to the world-but the present
writer, at least, has never known a
woman to whom it would have bts.n
reasonable to attribute the same impEr-
turbability.
Nor do we think that if such a womvn
existed, she could be, in the best sense
of the term, feminine. A true woman
is utterly vulgarized by having her high
est excitements and preoccupations not
merely removed from the personal to
the purely im%personal world, but made
dependent on doubtful events contain
ing a large element of chance. That
which is best and finest in woman will
not stand the wear and tear Of this kind
of life; and though that is true of most
men also, it is not so true, and will
never be so true, in their case, as it is
in that of women The corruption of
the higher type, as was long ago OBJ
served, is almost always q worse cor
ruption than the corruption of the lower.
Now, women's sensitiveness of percep-
ton and liveliness of affection, and that
delicacy Of tact which arises from sensi-
tive perceptions and lively affections,
form unquestionably a much larger pro-
portional part of their whole nature
than the same elements form of mems.
And as the excitements of commercial
gambling. e., of speculation on the
risks and chances of commerce-un-
doubtedly blunt that sensitiveness and
afectionateness and tact, it does much
more harm to m than it does to
men. And yet in unsexing them it be-
slows upon them pothing Of the better
masculine life, for we do not count a
little addition to the power of wearing a
mask through ordinary chances and
changes, n of the better aspects Of
masculine life. Just conceive what the
turf would become if women were the
chief managers of all its tricks and ras-
calities! Imagine what a woman acting
as Mr.. Trollope made Major Tufto act
in "The Dukes Children" must become!
The bare imagination is almost enough
to demonstrate the hopeless ruin which
gambling must bring on what is noblest
in women.-London Spectator.
Queer Antics Of Logs.