Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1884-01-20
vHarYoU FIGHrIN WALL STREET.

The business man who has succeeded
in legitimate trade and thinks he can
easily amsss fortune by taking little
flyer in stocks usually finds that his
surplus Used 10 that way goes "where
the woodbine twineth." While shrewd
and careful in his own business, such 3
merchant Is frequently foolish enough
10 think he can make money by put
ting in an hour day in the dark
against the schemes aud plans Of men
Who devote their whole time to stocks
al d have had years Of experience. The
New York Sun shows in this picture
what you really have to fight in Wall
street:
1t is the men ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
men-who are most successful In wall
street, rs elsewhere; and II Is 20 the emu
that they may see further than taer
competitors that $50 or more downtown
trims employ every auxiliary that can
be brought under their hands to
strengthen them in their daily battle I'D
the markets. Hence more than l3o
houses have svailed themselves
OF the telegraph to the extent
of hiring the private wires, and
other houses would do the work
for greater number. There are firms
sxpend as much as S20,OOO a year in
telegraphing to and rom their corre-
spOndents in remote cities and towns
III this country and Europe; and these
firms, with Correspondents at all i'm
portant points, are seldom pinched In
any Wall street squeeze. They go on
from year to year, realizing from S2),-
100 to S250,UtO annually above all ex-
penses, and their neighbors term them
lucky SPECTATORS.
Why term it luck? Those players
have their eyes constantly on the cards
in other players hands, and they know
when to play and when not TO play.
Given q game of whist in which two
partners know at the outset where every
card is, what are the chances of the
partners who know no more than they
may properly know under the rules OF
the game? What are the chances;
therefore, of the competitors OF those
houses that have provided themselves
with every conceivable means Of gath
ering intelligence? 1t is clear that the
weaker operator will get just what the
stronger may choose to give him, and
no more and that the hope of the weak
er that he may ploht by his speculation
lies only in his becoming customer OF
q g stronger house, and thus making II
lor the Interest of that house TO give
him a small margin Of profit.
l. the Spectator who has fortified
himself with all the advantages tnat in
relligenee can give ever bitten? Seldom.
He is not deceived 10y the laundering
and sometimes wilfully false circulars
that are distributed in town and tcle-
2rapled to the country every day; no
wild ruuor in "the street" disturbs him.
If he is in doubt, his private wire calls
up bis correspondent at the vital point
and he keeps out of the trap that catches
30 many of his neighbors. They operate
in Bedlam, and in the excitement on
the floor of the exchange they have
only what is visible to guide them;
but he looks behind the scenes. His
private wire Is Illegal; but whose busi-
ness is it to prosecute anybody for this
infraction of the law? And since no
more spectators can be accommodated
with private wires until new telegraph
llIlSS are DIOuSIlI lUlO tAlclcuCC hc tudy
expect to enjoy a long lease of his
monopoly.
The broker who pockets percentage
at every turn of the market, and VINO
cares not whether prices go up or down,
doesn't deem il his duty to publish the
illegal private wire monopoly to his
customers, the hundreds of thousands
of widows and executors, and c0uatry
merchants and retired gentlemen, aud
even deacons aud clergymen who dab
lie in stocks, and these purblind inno-
cents will keep OH putting up margins
and wondering, with the rest of the pub.
lie, why it il that the public cannot get
on tire wires between I'D a. NJ. and 3 z.
~, the time when commercial tele-
graphing is busiest.
You are told of Clen with sharp wits
who have gone into Wall street ana
made from 500, 900 to a quarter Of a
million in year or two. But how
many of them have come out year
later from $4,000 to $50,0O0 in debt?
They are permitted for season to draw
glttering prizes, the SPECTATORS who
held the private lines sagaciously assum-
ing that the gOmbling craze would hold
them in the market, and that their be-
rng in it would lull other gudgeons into
il, only to be luyht and laid out high
aud dry in the end.