The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1901-06-13

eternal right alf the affairs Of your bust
ness life will be adjudcated. Honesty
pays best for both worlds
Again, have to remark that Wall
Street is type throughout the country
OF legitimate speculation on the one
hand and OF ruinous gambling on the
other. Almost every merchant is to some
extent speculator. He depends not only
upon the difference between the whole
sale price at which he gets the goods and
the retail at which he disposes of them,
but also upon the fuctuation of the
markets: II the markets greatly sink, he
greatly loses. 1t is as honest to deal in
stocks as to deal in iron or coal or hard
ware or dry goods. He VINO condemns all
stock dealings as though they were in
liquitous. simply shows his own ignorance.
Stop all legitimate speculation in this
country, and you stop all banks, you
stop all factories, you stop all storehouses,
you stop all the great financial prosperi-
ties Of this country.
Sedate England took its chance in
1120. 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 market at f300
a share. The books open, in a few days
it is all taken and twice the amount sub
scribed.
Excitement following excitement until
all kinds of gambling projects came forth
prise. There was a large company formed
with great capital for providing funerals
for all parts Of the land. Another com
pany with large capital f5,000,000 capi-
tal-to develop a wheel in perpetual mo-
tion; another company, with capital of
f4,000,000 to insure people against loss by
servants; another company, with 92,500,-
itat fn tra lnt
from Virginia to England; then, to cap
the climax, company was. formed for
"a great undertaking-nobody to know
what it is" And, 10, 100000 in shares
were offered at fl00 share; books were
opened at o'clock in the morning and
closed at 8 o'clock in the afternoon, and
the first day it was all subscribed. "A
great undertaking to know what
It isl"
! An old magazine of those days de.
scribes the scene Hunts Magazine). 1t
says: From morning until evening
Change alley was full to overhowing with
one dense, moving mass Of living beings,
composed of the most inconruous ma
terials and in all things save the mad
pursuit whereof they were employed utter
ly opposite in their principles and feel
ings and far asunder in their stations in
life and the professions they follow.
Statesmen and clergymen deserted their
high stations to enter upon this great
theatre of speculation and gambling.
Churchmen and dissenters left their
fierce disputes and forgot their wranglings
upon church government in the deep and
hazardous game they were playing for
worldly treasures and for riches, which,
if gained, were liable to disappear within
an hour of their creation. Wings and
Tories buried their weapons Of political
warfare, discarded party auimosities and
mingled together in kind and friendly in
tercourse, each .exulting as their stocks
fortune frowned upon them. Lawyers,
physicians, merchants and travelling men
forsook their employment, neglected their
business, disregarded their engagements
to whirl along in the stream, to be at
last engulfed in the wild sea OF bank
ruptcy. Females mixed with the crowd,
forgetting. the station and employment
and dealt boldly and extensively and, like
those by whom they were surrounded,
rose from poverty to wealth, and from
that were thrown down to beggary and
want, and all in one short week and per-
haps before the evening which terminated
the first day Of their speculation. Ladies
OF high rank, regardless OF every appear
vailing infatuation, drove to the shops of
their milliners and haberdashers and
there met their stockholders, whom they
regularly employed and through whom
extensive sales were daily negotiated. In
the midst of the excitement all distinc-
tion of party and religion and circum-
stances and character were swallowed
up"
But it was left fo- our own country to
surpass it 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 during the morous multicaulis
excitement, when almost every man had
a bunch of crawling silkworms in his
house, out of which he expected to make
fortune. But all this excitement was
as nothing compared with what took
place in 1864, when man near Ttusville,
Penn, digging a well, struck oil. Twelve
hundred oil companies call for billion
Of stock. Prominent members of churches,
as soon as a 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 q foot of
ground, never expected to have. Their
entire equipment was a map of a region
where oil might be and two vials of
grease, crude and clarified. People rushed
first train and put their hard earnings in
the gulf.
A young man came down from the oil
region of Pennsylvania utterly demented,
having sold his farm at fabulous price
because it was supposed there might be
oil there-coming to hotel in Philadel-
phia at the time l was living there,
throwing $4,000 check to pay for his
MONDAY meal and saying he did not care
anything about the change! Then he
stepped back to the gas burner to light
his cigar with thousand dollar note. Ut
terly insane!
The good Christian people said, This
company must be all right, because Elder
So-and-so is president of it, and Elder So
and-so is secretary o., it, and then there
are three or four highly respected profess
ing Christians in the. board of directors"
They did not know that when professed
Christian goes into stock gambling he
lies like sin. But alas fer the country! 1t
became a tragedy, and a thousand million
dollars were swamped. There are families
to-day sitting in the shadow of destitu-
tion who but for that great national out.
rage would have had their cottages and
their homesteads. l hold up before the
young men these four great stock gam
bling schemes that they may see to what
length men will 90 smitten of this pas.
sion, and want to show them how all
the best interests OF society are against
it and God is against it and will condemn
it for time and condemn it for eternity.
l do not dwell upon the frenzied specula.
tions in Wall Street last month. You
have enough remembrance of that finan-
cisl horror. only want you to know
that it was in procession of monetary
frensies, some of which have passed and
others are to come.