The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-03-26
Spirit of the Press
The Gambling Evil.
Presbyterian standard.


Perhaps the very best measure that
was passed by the North Carolina
Legislature was the bill known as the
''Anti-Bucketshop Bill" to prohibit
dealing in futures. The Standard has
expressed it's views on that subject be-
fore this, but it may not be amiss to
recapitulate them.
Gambling is precisely the breach of
the Eighth Commandment that duel
ing is of the Sixth. Gambling is not
exactly stealing or robbery. Due1ing
is not exactly murder, But the same
divine and human law is violated by
either duelling or murder; and the
same law by robbery and thievery and
gambling. Sambo behind the chicken
coop is in the same criminal category
with the respectable operator who
CANDLES on the price of a thousand
bales of cotton which he has bought
from another gambler by means of a
telegraph wire, a bucket shop or a
cotton exchange, and the brokers who
get their commissions out of the
profits and the losses.
At the same time there is a legitt-
mate dealing in commodities to be de-
livered at a future time. The manu-
facturer who makes a contract to de-
liver so many bales of cotton cloth in
July, may find the price of July cotton
then too high for him to fulfil his con-
tract without loss. On the other
hand, it may be lower, so that he will
make an extra profit. But to run this
risk would be speculation of a haz-
ardous kind. So the manufacturer
protects himself from fiuctuation in
the markets, a good deal of it due to
gambling in cotton. it must be con-
fessed, by contracting to deliver the
cotton goods at price proportional to
the present price of July cotton, and
then he buys so many bales of July
cotton, of cotton to be delivered in
July. Then, whether the market is
UP or off the manufacturer makes
his legitimate profit on the manufac-.
ture of the goods. His agent, the
cotton buyer, is doing a legitimate
business. There may be abuse in this.
1t has been intimated that if some
manufacturers would attend to their
factories better and pay less heed to
the ticker, it would be better for the
stockholders.
Now the bucket shop is simply a.
place where one can bet on the rise
and fall of cotton, grahb, stocks etc,
and lite agent holds the stakes ana
extracts his commission. Sometimes
the dice are loaded against the poor
fools who are f1eeced in these dens, no
The cotton exchanges, on the other
hand, are connected by direct wire
with the exchanges in New York or
New Orleans. The attempt is some
times made to distinguish between the
gambling that is done in the one place
and that done in the other. There is
no distinction. The exchange plays
fair. That is, it echoes faithfully the
doings of the big gamblers and market
manipulators Of the big exchanges.
Also it should be said that the ex-
change enables manufacturers, their
agents, and the wholesale merchants
to do the legitimate business hereto
fore described. But also large
amount of gambling is done through
them, to the impoverishment, dis
grace, beggary and suicide Of hundreds
and thousands.
And so we are glad that the wood
ard Bill' made a clean sweep of them
ALL They have become an intoierable
nuisance, and the cotton exchanges
We're so respectable that their agents
were high up in the churches, and the
preachers were afraid to tell the truth
about them. The legitimate business
can be done by manufacturers and
their agents without them, at little
inconvenience. But a nuisance must
be abated. People have put a stop to
duelling, brushing aside the casuistry
that each man took his chances. They
are going to put a stop to the same
evil respecting property. We under
stand that the Raleigh exchanges are
already closed. The Charlotte ones