Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-10-21
CRANKY OPERATORS
WHO HAUNT THE BOARD OF TRADE
AND THE BUCKET SHOPS"

AND THE BUCKET SHOPS"
The Man Who Hung on Too Long-The
Cycle Crank and the Man with n Cor
ner ON the weather-Fsith in Clairvoy-
ants-A Photographers Luck.
The atmosphere about the board Of
trade is peculiarly favorable to the de
vclopmcnt of cranks. The soft brethren
drift into .'the alley" the bucket shops
and ultimately into the madhouse or the
grave. Some turn their peCuliarities to
profitable use, but in majority Of cases
the confirmed cranks become detestable
nuisanCes.
One poor old man, who is familiar
fiuure nbOut the corridors of the board Of
trade building. is what is known as bull
crank. Fifteen or twenty years ago, or
perhaps less remotely than that, even he
was in business on change. He was a
speculator in small way, but never knew
when to take in profits, and so almost in
yariably lost money. Once he caught on
at the bottom when Lyon, Sturgis or
somebody started a corner, and he hung
on and doubled up until his profits in the
deal represented a cool 100000. His
friends begged and besought him to get
out, but no, corn was going TO - a
bushel He went out driving with his
wife one morning and when he returned
an hour later, IL was to learn that the
corner had burst and that his $lOO,ON
and everything else he possessed had
been swept away. The shock unsettled
his mind, but he has haunted the scenes
Sinpn
bothering spectators, brokers, office
boys, settling clerks and visitors with
his crazy statistics and market letters.
The weather crank is a numerous, but
as yet not an offensive type Of individual.
| There" said one of them, pointing
| tragically toward the weather chart OF
the board of trade, ''do You see that
The monsoon is about to begin in the In
dian ocean. II will stop the shipment OF
wheat form India, and England will be
paying rs 81 so bushel for our wheat.
The market went right down % cents a
bushel. and it has never got within speak
ing distance of the line upon which il
was resting when the weather crank
made his monsoon prediction. Some OF
the weather cranks are not so cranky as
they seem.
| One operator who gravitates between
the stock yards and the board of trade
usually gets ahead of the signal service
bureau from twenty-four TO forty-eighi
hours on sensational weather changes
and bets his own money on the accuracy
| Of his predictions. He cleaned up S4,oOl
on a corn deal last week, having guessed
| the Manitoba frost far enough ahead o1
Gen. Hazen's bureau engine TO enable
him to load mp before anybody else
thought about such thing Then wher
everybody wanted to buy, he sold out
! He admits that his predictions won't al
ways do TO work on. but says If he car
ever master the science of meteorology hi
will be a millionaire. II will knock Col
Sellers eye water clean out Of sight.
THE CYCLE CRANK.
Then there is the cycle crank. He ha:
figured to nicely that periods Of depres
sion and initiation follow one another a
regular intervals. There are the grea
cycles and subsidiary or smaller cycles
II is in the power Of any man provided
with CyCliCal charts, to determine pre-
cisely when commercial changes ar,
going to take place. To be sure, the way
farer who fixes his eyes on the mountain
top away off yOnder on the horizon OF tht
chart is liable to fall over one OF th'
many intervening precipices and breai
his neck trying to get there, just as tht
speculator may lose his margin in an.
one of the many unthought-of undula
tions in market prices to be encountered
on the way from lower TO higher ranges
but these mishaps never shake the cyClir
crank in his belief in the absolute correct
ness of his theory. He may be broke
naked and hungry, when the marke
crosses the line he had prophesied wOulC
be reached, but the satisfaction he enjoy
in witnessing the triumph of his theory
counterbalances tha chagrin he feels owe
his failure to get there" ?ecuniarily
The cyclical crank in various stages o
development is very numerous on ant
about the exchanges, and he is not alway
unlucky.
The gentlemen who operate on tip
from the world beyond must not b.
! omitted from the list Of cranks. Oh
Commodore Vanderbilt speculated OI
spirit tips. He stuck to one clairyOyan
as long as the pointers turned out profit
ably. When the tips lost him money /
was his custom to kick the unlucky see
into the street, loaded down with curses
He had no use for spirits that played hin
false. 1t is related that he always hat
from one 10 twenty clairvoyants in hi
employ constantly.
There is rich grain speculator ol
change who follows tips from the un
seen world so long as they turn out righ
from the break" but he will neve
stand more than I cent per bushel los
on them, and rarely more than x cent
he can help it. He has operated on thi
plan for fifteen years, and, though no
a high roller" has amassed fortun
of $3.50, 900 or 800, 900, which he says
better than working at telegrapher'
desk for $50 week.-Chicago News.