The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-05
THE wALL-srREEr BEDLAM.
rhe Great Game of the More You Put Down
the Less You Take Up.

The Great Game of the More You Put Down
the Less You Take Up.
New York Sun.
AT 10 in the morning all down town is ready
for the opening of the Stock Exchange. All the
newspapers have been thoroughly read by en-
plOyes employed to find whatever intelligence
they may contain that can have any bearing
upon the markets, and such deductions as the
readers may have made are ready to be flashed
over %, 600 miles of wire HUNDRED operators
circulars, based upon newspaper dispatches, ana
upon private means of getting facts and
rumors, are poured into the telegraph Offices
and thousands of merchants begin to telegraph
to their agents, and get kilograms i'll return; and
from that hour until P. NJ there is a hum all
over the country. Millions upon millions change
hands on paper, and fortunes are made and lost
on the click of the telegraph instrument. The
transfers that are e1fectedin the Stock Exchange
are not, as everybody knows, 1.-THE of the tran
sactions of day even in this city, to say nothing
of the volume of business in the whole country
but Wall street makes the prices for all the mar
kets in the country, and the Spectator who
keeps well-informed as to the dOings in the
street need not look much further. Yet there
are houses that make record of all known money
transactions in the cities Of both hemlspheres,
and these houses base many of their operations
upon purchases and sales hundreds Of miles dis
tant from New York.
1t is the men of prescience-far seeing men
who are most successful in Wall street, as else
where; and it is to the end that they may see
further than their competitors that hundred
and fifty more downtown firms employ every
auxiliary that can be brought under their hands
to strengthen them in their daily battle IN the
markets Hence more than hundred and nifty
houses have awaited themselves of the telegraph
to the extent of hiring private wires, ana oJber
houses would do so if the telegraph companies
machinery could do the work for a greater num-
Der. There are firms that eXpend as much as
$50 600 year in telegraphing to and from their
correspondents in remote cities and towns IN this
country and in Europe; and these firms, with
correspondents at all important points, are sell
dom pinched in any Wall street squeeze. They
go on from year to year, realizing from $4,000
to $3.50, 600 annually above all expenses and
their neighbors term them lucky spectators.
Why term it luck! These players have their
eyes constantly on the cards in other players
hands, and they know when to play and when
not TO play. Given a game of whist in which two
partners know at the outset where every card is,
what are the chances of the two partners who
know no more than they may properly know I'M
der the rules of the games! What are the
chances, therefore, of the competitors of those
houses that have provided themselves with every
conceivable means of gathering intelligence! 1t
is clear that the weaker operator will get Just
what the stronger may choose to give nm,
and no more. and that the hope of the weaker
that he may profit by his speculatons lies only
in his becoming customer of the stronger house,
and thus making it for the interest of that
house to give him a small margin of profit.
Is the Spectator who has fortified himself
with all the advantages that intelligence can give
ever bitten! Seldom. Heis not deceived by the
laundering and sometimes wilfully false circulars
that distributed in town and telegraphed to
the country every day; no wild rumor in the
street. disturbs him If he is in doubt his private
wire calls up his correspondents at the vital point
and he keeps out of the trap that catches so many
of his neighbors. They operate in Bedlam,
and in the excitement on the floor of the EX-
change they have only what is visible to guide
them; but he looks behind the scenes His pri-
vate wire is Illegal; but whose business is it to
prosecute anybody for this infraction of the awss
Ana since no more spectators can be accommO-
dated with private wires until new telegraph
lines are brought into existence he may expect to
enjoy long lease of his monopoly
The broker, who pockets percentage at every
turn of the market and who cares not whether
prices go up or down, doesn't deem it his duty to
publish the illegal private wire monopoly to his
customers the hundreds of thousands of widows
and executors, and country merchants and re
tired gentlemen. and even deacons and clergy
men who dabble in stocks, and these purblnd in
nocents will Keep on putting up margins and
wondering, with the rest of the public, why it is
that the public cannot get on the wires between
10 A. NJ. and p NJ, the time when commercial
telegraphing is busiest
You are told of men with sharp wits who have
gone into Wall street and made from $l00,OO0 to
$3.50, 900 in a year or two Bit how many of
them have come out year later from
$50 900 to $4,000 in debt! They were
permitted for q season to draw glittering
prizes, the spectators who held the private
lines sagaciously assuming that the gambling
craze would hold them in the market, and that
their being in it would toll other gndgeons into
it, only to be caught and laid out high and dry
in the end.
A good story was told the reporter the other
day of y Woodworking man who had added to
the occupation that gave him a livelihood little
specializing in Wall street. After he had lost
So, 600 more than he had in the world, Wall
street friend heard of it, and calling on him,
said: George, you don't know the street, let me
have that stock, and I'll get you out of this
scrape" George complied and month later
the friend returned and gave him $27, saying;
''There, you're clear of debt. and have this
over" The two called in some friends and they
spent that $27 for wine, and George thanks his
lucky stars that he hasn't been in Wall street
since