The Yale expositor., 1901-06-14

gets his commission on one style or
goods. You. the grocer. get your com
mission on another style OF goods. The
dollar that he makes is just as bright
and fair and honest dollar as the dol
lar earned by the day laborer. But
here we must draw the line between
legitimate speculation and ruinous
gambling. You, stock operator with
out any property behind you. financial
ly irresponsible, sell 500 of nothing
and get paid for 1t. You sell 100 shares
at $4,000 at 80 days. II at the end or
80 days you can get the scrip for S9,OOO,
you have made a thousand. II at tho
end of 30 days you have to pay $1,000,
then you have lost thousand. Now
that is trafficking in fiction; that Is
betting on chances; that involves the
spirit of gambling as much as anything
that ever goes on in the lowest gambl-
ing hell.
Historical Gambling Scheme.
But France must have its gambling
expedition, and that was in 1716. John
Laws Mississippi scheme, it was call
ed. The French had heard that this
| American continent was built out OF
| solid gold, and the project was
| to take it across the ocean and
drop it in France. Excitement be-
yond anything that had yet been
seen in the world. Three hundred
thousand applicants for shares. EX-
element so great that sometimes the
mounted military had to dispense the
crowds that had come to buy the stock.
Five hundred temporary tents built to
accommodate the people until they
could have opportunity of interviewing
John Law. A lady of great fashion
had her coachman upset her near the
| place where John Law was passing in
order that she might have an interview
with that benevolent and sympathetic
! gentleman. Stocks went up to 1850
per cent, until one day suspicion got
into the market and down it all went
John Laws Mississippi scheme
burying its protector and some of the
greatest financiers in all France, and
was almost as bad as a French revolu-
| ton.
Sedate England took its chance in
1920. That was the South Sea bubble.
! They proposed to transfer all the gold
| of Peru and Mexico and the islands of
the sea to England Five millions
worth of shares were put on the mar
ket at C 900 a share. The books open,
in a few days it was all taken and
twice the amount subscribed.
Excitement followed excitement IN
til all kinds of gambling projects came
forth under the wing of this South Sea
enterprise. There was a large COM
pany formed with great capital for pro-
viding funerals for all parts of the
land. Another company with large
capital-G 3 100000 of capital-to de-
velop a wheel in perpetual motion. An
other company with capital of ga
600, 600 to insure people against loss by
servants. Another company with g.
900 capital to transplant walnut
trees from Virginia to England. Then,
to cap the climax, a company was
formed for "a great undertaking. no
body to know what it is" And. 10.
G6000 in shares were offered at
G1C0 share. Books were opened at
9 o'clock in the morning and closed at
3 o'clock in the afternoon, and the first
day it was all subscribed. "a great
undertaking, nobody to know what
it is"
The Largest Swindle%
But it was left for our own country
to surpass all, about thirty-seven years
AGO. We have the highest mountains
and the greatest cataracts and the
longest rivers, and, of course, we had
to have the largest swindle. One
would have thought that the nation
had seen enough in that direction dur
ing the morus multicaulis excitement
when almost every man had a bunch of
crawling slkworms in his house, out
of which he expected to make a for
tune. But all this excitement was as
nothing compared with what took
place in 1864 when a man near Titus
Vile. Pa, digging for well, struck oil.
Twelve hundred oil companies call for
a billion of stock. Prominent mem
bers of churches, as soon as q certain
amount of stock was assigned them,
saw it was their privilege to become
presidents or secretaries or members
of the board Of direction. Some of
these companies never had a foot Of
ground, never expected to have. Their
entire equipment was a map of re-
gion where oil might be and two walls
of grease, crude and clarified. People
rushed down from all parts of the
country by the first train and put their
hard earnings in the gulf. A young
man came down from the oil regions Of
! Pennsylvania utterly demcnted. having
sold his farm at a fabulous price be-
cause it was supposed there might be
oil there-coming to a hotel in Phlla-
delphia at the time | was living there.
throwing down a $4,000 check to pay
for his MONDAY meal and saying he
lila not care anything about the
change! Then he stepped back to the
gas burner to light his cigar with a
81 900 note. Utterly insane.