The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-09-18

knowledge outside the rail as they did
in the high toned but no nor honest
brokers' Office, who aided them to lose
their fortunes. They will follow the
same old beaten paths of speculation
that they followed before, and will lose
their money with the same positive
conviction that their luck is dead
against them, because, as they declare,
if they could have held on but a little
while longer the market would have
been certain to come their way. Again
they find themselves upon the street
without a dollar. They walk down
town in the morning and back again
at night. They find a free lunch" at
midday, and think only of the time
when their luck will turn. They do
not seek for employment, al it is too
slow a process for obtaining money,
and they say to themselves that even
if they could get situations the salary
would be so small that it would do
them no good, and so they continue to
borrow q dollar here and a dollar there
and wait and hope for years. Their
hope is based upon nothing more sub
stantial than stories Of men who have
taken a ten, dollar bill and run it up
into thousands of dollars. They never
lack for company. The street is full of
just such as they, in various stages of
poverty, all of whom are acquainted
and know of each others past wealth
and former power in the market.
Former bankers and brokers, mer-
chants, whose names were respected
throughout the commercial world q
decade ago, and many others, all of
whom were wrecked by speculation,
meet from day to day. They form a
sort of nomadic brotherhood. They
are all on a level, past gIories have de-
parted, and they are willing to borrow
a dollar wherever they can. They
have become ingrained pessimists, who
see no good in anything except chart
ties to themselves, and these they &C
cept as being their due upon the sup
position that the world owes it to them.
They have long since moved down
ward from the Exchange to the bucket
shops, and through the various grades
of these until they are to be found in
in the rooms of the very lowest class
of foul, i'll smelling ones, where they
will sit all day, day after day, in a fetid
atmosphere, listening to the calling of
prices from the ticker and watching
the u~nderpaid and dirtily- dressed boy
chalking the prices upon the black
board. They sit there nodding and
sleeping in their chairs in warm
weather, and huddled about the i'll
smelling stove in winter to keep their
scantily clothed bodies warm. Do they
ever speculate after reaching this con
dition9 Yes, at times. When by some
means they have obtained four or five
dollars, they will buy or sell two shares
Of stock on q one-point margin. If the
market goes their way and they make
the two point profit to which the pro
prietor of the bucket-shop limits them,
they take their profit, less a double
commission, for one must pay well to
trade in broken lots that are de-
livered, and go up town at 8 o'clock
with q threadbare self satisfied feeling
that their powers have not yet deserted
them. Upon these occasions they are
looked upon with respect by the pat
rons of the bucket shop who have lost
that day, aud their opinions are asked
as the were years before, when they at
times manipulated the market. They
are as well pleased with themselves at
getting two points profit on two shares
as they were formerly in getting ten
points on i, 900 shares. The following
day their steps are a little more elastic
as they enter the bucket shop, for they
see success at the far end of a long
vista of misfortunes.
Four shares of stock are purchased
this time, for the market closed above
the point at which they were compelled
to close their contracts by the proprie
tor of the bucket shop the day before.
and they were told years ago, when
they first wentinto the street, to "play
a market as long as it goes your way"
It takes their former capital to pay the
commissions On the four shares. and
the profits of the day before are put
up as margin. The market continues
strong for an hour or so, and they re-
ceive congratulations on their pros
poets from the others inlthe room. Real
or supposed news that affects the mar
ket is received in the street, a sudden
drop takes place, and their margin is