The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1889-05-15
CORNERING THE MARKET.
INSIDE TALK ABOUT MEN WHO
MAKE FORTUNES IN A DAY.
Watching the Markets-They Buy
Up and Control the Supplies and
Deal Them out at Big Profits,

Deal Them Out at Big Profits.
The ocean cable has revolutionized
commerce. II has wiped out Of existence
the old-time merchant who speculated in
his now odd way on the rise and fall in
prices of the products of foreign countries.
Nowadays the telegraph is too quick for
him. The cargocs of goods and necessi-
ties on the sea are told about. The
chances for big crops are among the
things gossipped about along the wires
and the cables every day of the week
from Teheran to Boston. Yet, somehow
or other, bright merchants occasionally
make a profitable corner in products, in
spite of telegraphs and swift steamers.
Take the case of Mr.. Joseph j. O'Dono-
hue. lie is in position to-day to dictate
the price of tea, notwithstanding railroads,
steamships and cables, for it would take
a good month 10 order teas from China
before they could arrive in New York,
and meanwhile the public must buy their
teas of Mr.. O'Donohue or go without
II cost him n cool half million dollars
TO get up this little corner in tea. twas
not done by steady buying, or as the re-
suit Of long expectation, but was largely
luck with a small supply on hand and no
goods on the way, and the sharp-witted
Mr.. ODonohue saw a chance for
quick turn, and in a couple of days
bought up every box of tea in the great
wholesale market. As usual, it was only
when the deal had been consummated
that the other spectators saw what
chance they had missed. Mr.. O'Donohue
Is now unloading rapidly ut small ad-
vance upon the purchasing price, but it
is safe to say that he will realize $780,
600 and have all his money back at the
end of the month.
Could he hold up the market for any
longer period he would make much
greater profit, but, fortunately for
public, cables and fast steamers and rail
roads have brought prices all over the
world almost down TO dead level for
staple articles, and it is only under eX-
ceptional circumstances that small cor
ner can be manipulated, and then it lasts
but short time. 1t is in the obscure
products that active spectators, who de-
sire to get up little corners of their own,
now look for a chance, for the collapse of
the copper syndicate shows what fabulous
sums are needed to initiate the price of u
staple article and how impossible it is to
prevent competition.
A year or two ago there was failure
in tho American hop crop, and importa-
tions began under u heavy duty. A
sharp young man downtown, who was
familiar with the beer trade, bought up
all the aquassia wood he could lay his
hands on. This is Il wood that is used
mainly for medicinal purposes, having
tart flavor that makes it a good appetizer,
and the world uses hardly more than
few shiploads year. The brewers,
however, rely upon this wood to re-
enforce their mash when hops are high,
and when it is thus used barely a fourth
of the usual quantity of hops is necessary
to give beer the required flavor. This
young speculator had the American
brewers at his mercy, and he realized
small fortune out of the deal without the
general public hearing anything about
the affair.
Last year an amateur coin collector went
abroad and somehow started a report that
several bushels of rare Greek coin had
been found in recent excavations. In
stantly the value of these coins fell under
this bear movement, when he quietly
went to work and bought them all in.
1t was soon discovered that the reported
discovery was Il hoax, and when prices
went up again the amateur speculator
was able to make the cost of European
tour out of the deal. Another curious
corner was made in peanuts by an Italian
in this city not long ago, and it furnished
an immense amount of fun to the Stock
Exchange jokers, who labeled him
Napoleon of Baxter street.
In the drug trade numberless small
corners are being gotten up all the time,
and in many instances the Spectators are
wiped out. Quinine is Il favorate specu-
lative commodity that frequently doubles
in price, 1t takes large sum of money
to manipulate these deals in obscure arti-
cles, however. 1t is not long since a
London banker was ruined because he at
tempted to conner indigo in imitation Of
a rival who made fortune out of a spec
ulation in cochineal, which is dye that
has no other use than to color the red
coats of the British army. If Lord
Wolseley succeeds in reforming the red
coat out of existence the cochineal indus
try of Central America, which employees
thousands of natives gathering these min
ute insects, will be ruined.
A lot of small booms have been engi-
neered in the bric-a-brac trade, which
produces not only curiosities in ivory but
in flesh and blood. One old gentleman
in this city has for years been getting
possession of all the floating Egyptian
rings which he could buy cheap, conf
dent that the day will come when there
will be a rush for these ornaments, while
an uptown crank says that the Indians
are so rapidly passing away that their
relics will in a few years command Il
high premium, and he is laying in a stock
of arrow heads and dried-up scalps.-
NclO York ,Star.
Selling Il Hair of Gladstone.