The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1886-06-03
San Francisco Stock Gambling.

am cOnnQent tnaC the romance OF
stock gambling will never be written,
writes San Francisco correspondent of
The Sacramento Bee. Life here is too
rapid, too pushing for men to pause
and reflect on that curious "has been"
of San Francisco. But never stroll
down Pine street, or linger in the shad
ows of Pauper alley, but meet some
one who would be entitled to place in
that unwritten romance. The tall hg-
ure, face clean cut and refined, gait
slow and painful from the effect of an
old wound, is before me as l write,
James d. Walker ten years ago was a
member of the bonanza firm, and his
check was good for $500,O00, aye, or
81, 900. 900, at any bank in the country
Then Flood and Fair bought him out,
and Walker opened brokers' office
under the Nevada bank, and did all the
business of his former partners. In
these times Flood, Fair, and Mackey
were on the top notch of speculation.
They were swinging the market at their
own sweet will, and making or break
ing the thousands who were battling
with the fierce tide of stock-gambling.
Alexander Austin, or Sandy" as his
feiends used to call him, had just served
his term as tax collector, and went in
with Walker. How they did make
things boom! The high-salaried clerks
the book-keeper got S4OO month,
and had a sumptuous lunch served ev-
cry day in large room in the rear of
the office at the expense of the firm.
Their expenses were enormous, but SO
was their business. The partners were
clearing $4,000 month. but they were
standing on the brink of preci-
pice. Flood remarked that other
and outside brokers were manip-
ulating certain stock precisely
as his own brokers. This would never
do, so he called a consultation, and in
formed the Walker firm that sort of
thing would not do, that there was a
traitor in the camp somewhere, and
that, unless he was detected and fired,
their relations could not continue
Close and earnest investigation was
made, but without avail. Then came a
transaction of more than ordinary im-
portance, but to the intense disgust OF
the bonanza firm. it was apparently
foreseen and anticipated by these same
outside brokers, kept posted, apparent
ly, by some traitor in the Walker-Aus-
tin camp. Then the bonanza people
changed their broker, and from that
hour the fortunes of Walker & Co., be-
gan to decline. Matters grew worse
and worse. Austin committed suicide
Walker sold a magnificent mansion in
Oakland which cost him close on $780,
600, to prop up the waning glory of the
swell firm. At last it was a clean case
of bust, and don't believe Mr.. Walker
to-day could put his hand ON 5000 |
saw him looking wistfully at the Nevada
bank building. probably comparing the
different states of Flood, the member,
and Walker, the ex-member, of the
bonanza firm. He discovered, when too
late, that The high-priced book-keeper
but no luck ever came of his treachery,
and he is to-day keeping books at 800
month for Hebrew clothes-dealer il
Portland, Ore.
Walker is but type of hundreds of
others who have had their chance and
their day on Pine street. With a
strange faulty these wrecks still cling
to the locality where they made and
lost fortunes in the past, though nine
tenths of them have not dime to
speculate with, and could not get credit
for a glass of lager, when their names
decade ago were sufficient guarantee
for a dozen or fifty dozen cases of
champagne. A few have pulled out
with small stake, and there are some
there on the street yet who have a little
money. and would speculate if they
saw an opening, and not few fanatics
who await the coming of the Messiah
the discovery of another great bonanza.