The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-05-12
GAMBLERS IN WALL STREET.
Boston Herald.

1t IS lndulged Tn Oy ms neip or ms relatives. He lives by it, but it is for bidden to all who are dependent on him or who serve him. The other day e broker, who Is junior partner in one of the principal houses on Wall street, became suspicious that one of the boys was "trading," as the Wall street folks politely call gambling. He likes the boy, and thinks him one of the brightest lads that he ever saw, so that he made an effort to catch him breaking the rule against trading, and to warn him that if any other member of the firm ever caught him at the practice he would have to lose his place. The question was how to ex- pose the lad, but an opportunity was soon offered. A customer came in while the boy was writing at desk.
 The customer said "Central pretty lively?"
 Instantly the boy dropped his pen and asked: "What is it now?"
 "One hundred and nineteen" said the customer.
 Then the broker saw his chance. "What did you buy at, Billy?" he in- quired of the boy.
 Before the boy had taken time to think of the confession he was mak- ing he replied;
 "One hundred and fifteen, sir" He was 30 pleased at having made profit of four points on his trade that the words slipped from him.
 "Now, Pve got you, Billy" said the broker; "go and sell out and quit speculating as long as you remain with this house. The next time you're caught at it you'll have to go."
 In another office it was noticed that all the office boys were in the habit of collecting around the ticker whenever their elders were not looking over the tape, and that they whispered great deal whenever they were there to- gether. One of their employers called them all before him one day, and, upon ross-examining them, discovered that the eldest and brightest boy was rum ming bucket shop on his own account, with cent point as the standard of value instead of dollar, as on change, and had initiated all his associates in the full mystery of stock gambling. They were trading long and short, and initiating, on microscopic scale, the operations of the customers of the office, some taking bulls as their models as some betting with the bears. The baby bucket shop keeper was ex- acting tiny premium on profits and scooping in the losses quite like an adult. He was discharged, and the rest were made to promise that they would never transgress again.
 One of the shrewdest and quickest boys that ever turned up in Wall street obtained place in German banking house as an office boy at $5 a week less than three years ago. He does not get more than $8 or $l0 now, but in the meantime he has grown to be seventeen or eighteen years old, and has become such figure that the best way to describe his appearance is to gay that he dresses like John Blood- good. Like the garments of that leader of fashion and popular broker, his clothes are always neat and chosen with genteel taste, being made of costliest materials, cut to fit as fluid fits whatever 1t fills, and yet never gaudy or loud. Last Tuesday l met this boy and asked him how he was getting along. -
 "Oh, nicely" said he, "though I had a bad week of it. dropped si, ,2ooo on wheat"
 A little questioning brought out the fact that this boy had begun, as all others do, by small dickering in bucket shops, based on what was said or done in the office where he worked. By putting the bucket shop winnings by and combining with another youth on a good tip or two, he had gathered capital enough to make regular trade on the stock market. That had turned out well, and he then had become a regular gambler on Change. Viewing this caEe In one way, the bucket shop was certainly to blame for making a gambler of him, but he got his points from the legitimate gamblers, and is now one of them, and as good ss any of them as long as he wins and his em- ployer doesn't find him out.
 But the stories that are being told to influence the public against the small quotation peddlcrs do not stop within any such limits as those above narrated. They contain tales of rich bankers and brokers driving about at midnight to this house and that and begging men to surrender cheeks cashed during that day for wayward son who has forged to get money to meet trading losses, and who has then become frightened and confessed to the rich father ere the exposure of the next day came. They include tales of petty thefts by some clerks, and of the running of homes by others, who have got the fever without money to feed