New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-06-14
T8E BUCKET-SHOP BILL.

| Governor Hill has tried to please the rura
| districts by signing the bill to prohibit gam
bling in stocks and products, and at the same
| time has filed an explanatory memorandum de-
| signed to placate the members Of the various
commercial exchanges. The bill, he says, will
not in any way affect the transactions in the
| Stock Exchange, the Produce or Cotton or
| Coffee Exchange ; it does not invalidate or pro-
| bibit any transaction which was not previously
unlawful; its sole object is to stop the mante-
nance of rooms or shops for the making or re-
ception of wagers on the prices Of stocks or
commodities.
II the Governor is right, the act altogether
fails to accomplish what many of its supporters
intended They believed that a large proper
ton of the transactions in securities and prod
ucts were mere bets on prices. 1t was not
their intention to prohibit bucket shops" only
but the class OF so-called transactions by which
the bucket shops'' are kept alive. The ooun-
try people, in short, believe that gambling in
stocks, in grain. in lard or cotton or coffee, il
quite as pernicious as any other kind of gam
bling, and the object of the bill which the Gov
ernor has signed was TO prohibit and punish
that sort of gambling, and to make it illegal,
unsafe and costly to keep open offices for that
pretended Cuisines" In saying that he signs
the bill only because he thinks it will not do
what it was expressly intended to do, the Gov
ernor does not please the people of the country,
and in signing the bill he has dspleased the
members Of the various exchanges
They know, possibly better than the Gov
ernor does, that large part of their trans
actions can be represented as illegal by their
customers whenever those customers please.
The broker is entirely at their mercy. He opens
an Office, and undertakes to buy and to sell for
them, and it is impossible for him TO know
whether the contracts they make are legitimate
commercial bargains or purely gambling wagers.
In many cases, it is true, the broker may know
that the customer cannot and does not intend
10 pay for the property boughti he is simply
buying with intent TO sell again before 1t ever
becomes necessary to receive or pay for the
property. But in other instances, probably far
moro numerous, the broker has no means Of
knowing anything about the intention Of the
customer. For aught the broker knows, he
may be abundantly able and may intend to take
and pay for the securities or the products pur-
chased. But il he pleases, he can at any time
swear, when purchase or sale has turned out
badly, that he was only gambling, and had no
intention to receive or deliver the property, and
that the supposed transaction was therefore void
In law and Of the kind prohibited by the new
statute.
Therefore, the act which the Governor has
signed puts it in the power of any dishonest
customer to make a great deal of trouble for
even the most honest and reputable broker. II
is not possible for him always to know .the
character or the intentions Of a customer. But
if the customer pleases to swear that he did not
intend to take the property purchased, or 10
deliver the property sold, and was merely max
ing wager on the price, how can the broker
refute his assertion? Under recent decision
of the Supreme Court such purchases or sales
are gambling contracts which the law will not
enforce, and the new act in this State may ex-
pose any broker to severe penalties for keeping
place Of business at which such gambling
contracts are made, 1t is probable that the
law may never be strictly enforced, because II
so enforced, it would stop the business Of al
most every broker in securities or products.