St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-06-30
Is There Not Prospect for Repetition Of
the Tough Experience
of 1882
Some Interesting Gossip Concerning the
Present Buyers and Sellers
of Wheat.
Markets for the Day Made Irregular
by Variety of Causes,
Closing Firm.
The Wall Street Puzzle--OId Opera
tors at Loss to Know
What to Do.
Chicago.
Special to the Globe.


ing for Bill Young on a SIS, 900 salary. He
had also the privilege of putting his trades
down to Bill Young and he used it. In that
year there was about $4,000, 900 bushels of
wheat in sight, the biggest visible supply,
with one exception, up to that time. Wheat
was going at about 81 per bushel, a very low
figure as prices had been running for long
while. In April Armour bought the wheat
and in May and June sold it out at
about S11O. Truman B. Handy, the
deceased Cincinnatian, was here, and when
Armour sold the wheat he took it for his
Cincinnati crowd. He ran his corner
through July and August, 1881, and in
September sold at S1.25. Then Harper
and others of Handy's clique, who We're
weak enough to think that the market had
gone up because of the peculiar quality of
their Cincinnati shrewdneSs, not only sold
out their wheat but ''shorted' the market
on the theory that with their support gone
the price would go to pot. But the
FIGURES KEPT ON UP.
The Cincinnatians, who had made barrel
of money on the long side, from S1.10 up
to S1.25, lost good share of it on the
''short'' side, from S1.25 up to ST. Billy
McHenry busted, and so did Joe Preston
and good many others who did not give
up, and were hurt pretty seriously.
Now the writer remembers very
well how closely Nat Jones watched
the proceedings of that year.
Bill Young'S offices were right in the cor
ner of the alley, and half the trading was
done in that little court, next to the old
board building. Handy used to trot anx-
iously up and down between Kenyons
offices on Washington street and McHenrys
IN no oil hl1iI w
watched the proceedings very closely, but
made some money-not big money-by
''taiIing on.' Now, Jones some months
ago formed apparently, theory that this
year would be a repetition of the experience
of 1881. Handy's success was due to a
$50, 900. 600 bushel crop, and was, in spite
of an enormous visible supply, enormous
in those days. He recently began buying
wheat and bulling it with all his old aSsO
ciates against him, but with WoeriShOffer
and other substantial
NEW WORKERS AS ALLIES
He stuck to his theory at least fort
night-a good while for Nat Jones to stick
to anything that loses him money. Last
week he abandoned it. Whether the the
DRY is right or wrong he declares now he is
uncertain; he knows he is not going to play
it any more. 1t lost him SO much money
that last week he unlOaded his wheat and
went short and wheat as a consequence,
closed Saturday about Sc bushel under
the figures of the Saturday before. 1t has
not been hard matter to follow the selling.
Almost everybody has been at it-John
Cudahy, Norman Ream, the LinnS Roche
and Jones' The Linns and Roche were in
Jones' party and did not sell out until last
week. ST. LouiSians, with Nose Fraley in
fhn oT,H rl,n ole OF ON
allies of Jones, have been sellers for some
time. Fraley has been one of the most po-
tent of the recent bear influence. Nc
Geoch and Sanderson and their Milwaukee
crowd have been sellers, too. But who
have taken the wheat? 1t has had takers,
Of course, or it wouldn't have been sold,
but
WHO HAVE THEY BEEN?
1t isn't so easy to decide this. Some
think that Woerishoffer has absorbed the
most of it. Others are of the opinion that
Testers bull following and George c. Walk
er's have gotten the most of it. Where the
price keeps going down it is always
hard to detect the buyers, for they
are sufferers, and want to keep their
suffering to themselves. The price Of
wheat in the next two months will, it is
agreed, be moved up or down by the re-
ceipts of winter wheat. If great lot of
grain reaches st. Louis and other winter
wheat points the bulls will have terrible
time of it in the next three months. The
foreign shippers usually take about 40, 000,
600 bushels of the winter wheat. If they
get it early this year spring grades will not
be wanted, and the prices will be likely to
suffer seriously. But if the shortage in the
winter wheat crop is not myth, and if the
A&c Of o,,6 nj
more and New York and elsewhere as
small as they are now, then the shippers
will not be able to supply their wants and
spring wheat will be in demand Then,
certainly, the experiences of 1883 will be
gone through with again, and then Nat
Jones theory
WILL BE INDICATED.
Wheat to-day was irregular and higher.
Under the effect of early decentralization at
st. Louis and lower markets at the sea-
board, August opened here &c lower and
sold down to the put price-S9Ac. This
covered some buying and steadied prices,
when along came dispatch saying that
civil war had broken out in Afghanistan.
For the past two or three days the majority
of traders have been sellers and the short
interest was large and when this warlike
intelligence got around the rush of shorts
to cover sent wheat up to 90$4c in
very few minutes, with the live
Hest kind of scrambling to get in
first. Liverpool was said to be quiet
and steady and cargoes were the same.
Mark Lane, however, was higher, and so
were English country markets. Farmers
deliveries the past week were 80, OOO@35,-
600 quarters. Reports from ST. Louis were
very bearish and July wheat there opened
14c lower, with August about as weak.
Dispatches said that everybody was selling
and the market was demoraliZed. Over
1000 sacks of new wheat had come in from
Southern Illinois, and they were
EVIDENTLY AFRAID
of small deluge of receipts. The later
feeling was Steadier. Reports from Kan
sas and Nebraska were much better and in
dictated the possibility of about half
crop i'll the former state, in
spite of all drawbacks. The grain was
said to be thin, but heading out plump and
full 1.-The wheat market, as whole, is ex-
tremely sensitive to outside influence of a
buliish character and only needs small eX-
euse to go up, while the down turns are
slow, protracted and reluctant. After the
first squirt had subsidized August went back
to the opening. On the morning board
prices improved and the last figures were
1ac above those OF the opening, at S719c
June, SSc July, 9274c September.
Corn remains comparatively serene and
steady during the commotion in August,
rising about g to 471Sc for July and Au-
gust, and then falling back to its old posi-
tion 46%c. The range of activity in the
cereal has been quite narrow for some time.
Liverpool was said to be ''slow" on corn,
and our receipts were pretty fair, and these
two facts doubtlessly prevented any further
rise. The visible" tomorrow is also ex-
pected to show about 100, 900 increase, and
this, too, had its weight. Prime reported