St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-04-26
THE GAMBLING FEVER.
How It Infects the Votaries of Grain
Speculation.
Bucket Shop Gambling Versus Trading
on the Board.
Some of the Tricks of the Trade to
Catch the Verdant.
Correspondence of the Globe.

foreign wars, has brought to ruin many
'bucket shops" in all the large trading cen
tiers OF the country. Pity it is that all were
not cleaned out, for more insidiOus form
OF vice does not exist. The speculative
mania is developed to greater or less de-
gree III every man, woman and child, and
the temptation to obtain much for little, the
tiattering inducements held out by willy Spid
ers to unsuspecting flies, have been and will
always be snapped up with avidity by a gull
lible public. The charms of 'draw" are not
a few; faro and other games of the green
cloth have their peculiar attractions, but
they are not respectable" but many a
good man and woman, whose souls recoils in
horror from vulgar card OF wicked ''chip,"
do not hesitate to risk their means on the
rise and fall of the grain and provision
market. Legitimate trading" so-called,
is confined to the floor of the board of trade;
outside its sacred precincts the transactions
are called gambling" But owing to the
inability OF the great mass of spectators to
purchase seats ON change, gamblers pre-
dominate, and the bucket-shop men, who
establish exchange for this class of traders,
REAP A RICH HARVEST.
There are in Chicago half-a-doZen bucket
shops of the tirSt-claSS-that is, they do an
immense business in this peculiar form of
gambling and enjoy perfect immunity from
the city authorities. The board of trade, in
spaSm OF virtue, year ago commenced
bitter war On the bucket shops, and numer-
Gus suits are now pending in the courts to
settle the differences between them. The
board of trade is the aggressor, and the plan
proposed is to withhold from the bucket
shops the market quotations TO the board,
without which, it is alleged, they could not
live day. These upright board of trade
men, who are busily engaged in fleeing I'M
suspecting countrymen every day of their
lives and who are willing to lay up treas
ureS here and take their chances for the
corruption of moth and rust, denounce the
bucket shops as gambling hells and their
proprietors as thieves, and their patrons
as idle, lazy and vicious. 1t is admitted
that the implements used in the game at
these places are similar to those in use in
the rules of legitimate trade, but the adj
mission is accompanied by the argument
that this only renders the shops more allur-
ing and dangerous.
The ordinary bucket shop is a place where
men can deal in speculative articles in a
.esS quantity than Oh the regular board of
trade. and the commission charged gener-
ally is One-eighth of 1 per cent.-50 per
cent. less than on the established board.
Quotations are received from the regular
board by telegraph wire, and Immediately
posted in full view Oh blackboard. When
anyone wishes to make purchase, he con-
suits the latest quotations on the blackboard
and fills out contract blank, provided by
the proprietor of the shop, which certifies
that he has purchased a given quantity OF a
| certain article at the price named, and to
this he attaches his signature. The blank
is handed to the cashier together with the
regular margin, which is one cent bushel
on grain and % cents barrel ON pork.
This consummates the purchase and holds
good until the market declines enough to
exhaust the margin put up, in which case a
| call is made Oh the purchaser and if he
should decline to put up more margins, the
deal is at once closed, and the purchaser is
loser to the amount first put up by him as
a margin. If on the contrary the market
should advance, the purchaser is entitled to
receive from the proprietor of the shop
where he made his purchase the difference
between the price at which he purchased
and the figure at which he sold, less the
commission already mentioned which the
proprietor charges for making the deal.
Should the market remain stationary the
chooses, less the commissions: or should the
market decline little but not enough to
exhaust the margin, the commission and
amount of decline are deducted and the
balance turned over to the purchaser.
In the bucket shops purchases and sales
are not made with view of actually hand
ling and delivering the articles traded in;
but the deals are simply a bet that the
markets will advance or fall as the case
may be. The bucket shop men claim that
there is more illegitimate trading on the
floor of the exchange than in the
shops, which is, perhaps true; but it
must be remembered that the bulk
of trading on change is for delivery-that is
bona fide purchases and sales are made.
All purchases in the bucket shop are made
directly from the proprietor, and he it is
who makes or loses, while on the regular
board deals are made between the fire.
quenters of the pits. On the regular board
| all is rush and noise and confusion; the
blcket shop is very quiet. There is no
Shouting or gesticulating, and when one
wishes to make purchase he simply goes
| to the cashiers window, fills out blank
AMI deposits his margin. The lowest deal
| taken in these places is for 500 bushels of
grain and twenty barrels of pork. Until
recently 5000 bushels of grain was the
smallest amount traded in on the regular
board but the minimum is now 200 BUSH
els
Curious instruments are sometimes used
for showing the quotations, and as they are
generally complex in mechanism, they af-
ford the fullest freedom for manipulation
by the proprietor, and the purchaser is
duped and swinded before his very eyes.
Il Ill Ill
because of the large number of pool rooms
and bucket shops to be found there's an
instrument known as o'clock ticker" A
large iron frame is surrounded by what ap-
pears at first glance an ordinary clock. In
the frame beneath the clock are two narrow
openings, one beneath the other. Every
fifteen seconds, by movement of hidden
mechanism, some cards appear in view in
one or the other of these Sits, and ON the
cards are written the names of some article,
such as wheat, corn, pork, and underneath
the word is a fraction-H, Il, u, etc.
| Should the card appear in the upper Slit it
raises the market by the fraction shown,
and vice versa, if the card appears at the
lower opening. To all appearances every
thing is fair. The cards are put into long
boxes and exposed to public view before
being placed in the machine, and to give
the transaction an appearance of hon
esty anyone is invited 20 shuttle
the cards. But as the shuffler can only dis
arrange a small portion of the whole lot
enough still remain in their original position
to make the deal come ont ON the side of
the proprietors, so that in the long run it is
losing game for the speculatOr as there
can be no doubt but that the cards are ar
ranged to appear as the proprietor desires
This clock also fixes the prices OF articles
dealt in according to its own methods. De-
casiOnally the figures on the dial agree with
the real prices, but as rule they do not.