Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-05-20
san FRANCISCO sTOCK-GAMBLING.
The Fate of a Former Member of the Bonanza
Firm.
Sacramento Bee

lie rate OF a FORMER MEMBER OF the Bonanza
Firm.
Sacramento Bee.
I am confident that the romance of
stock gambling will never be written,
writes San Francisco correspondent to
The 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 Pine street, or linger in
the shadows of Pauper alley, but l meet
someone who would be entitled to a place
IN that unwritten romance. The tall fig
ure, face clean cut and refined, gait slow
and painful from the effect of an old
wound, is before me as [ write. James
D. Walker ten years ago was member of
the bonanza firm, and his check was good
for S500,O00, aye, for $1,O00,000, 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 MAX
ing or breaking the thousands who were
battling with the fierce trade of stock
gambling. Alexander Austin, or Sandy"
as his friends 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 $500 a month, and
had sumptuous lunch served every 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.
They were clearing $4,000 a month,
but they were standing on the brink of a
precipice. Flood remarked that other
and outside brokers were manipulating
certain stock precisely as his own brokers.
This would never do, SO he called a con-
sultatiOn, and Informed 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 the transact
ton of more than ordinary Importance,
but to the intense disgust Of the bonanza
firm it was apparently foreseen and an
ticipated by these same outside brokers,
kept posted, apparently, by some
traitor in the Walker-Austin camp. Then
the bonanza people changes their broker,
and from that hour the fortunes of Walk
er & Co. began to decline. Matters grew
worse. Austin committed suicide. Walker
sold a magnificent mansion in Oakland
which cost him close on 100000, 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,
propably comparing the different states
of Flood, the member, and Walker, the
ex-member of the firm. He discovered
when too late, that the high priced book
keeper was the traitor. He sold his en-
plOyers, but no luck ever came of his
treachery, and he is to day keeping books
at $50 a month for a Hebrew clothes deal
er in Portland Oregon.
Walker is but a type of hundreds of
Others who have had their chance and
AM 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 a dime to speculate with
and could not get credit for glass of
lager, when their names decade ago
were sufficient guarantee for dozen or
fifty dozen cases of champagne. A few
have pulled out with a small stake,
and there are some there yet who have
a little money, and would speculate if
they saw a little opening, and not few
fanatics who await the coming of the
Messiah-the discovery of another great
bonanza.