The practice to which the term "stock jobbing" is more par. ticularly applicable, is that of dealing in stocks or shares by persons who possess but little or no property in any of the funds, yet who contract for the sale or transfer of stock at some future period at a price agreed upon at the time. Such bargains are called time bargains, and this practice is gambling in every sense of the word.

Wall Street, in New York City, is the principal scene of stock jobbing in the United States. The New York Stock Exchange is the dominant feature of this locality. Here the prices of stocks and securities are determined, and here men become millionaires or paupers in a day.

Big Profits and Big Losses.-Stock jobbing is carried on to an amazing extent, and is of this character: A agrees to sell to

B $50,000 of bank stock, for instance, to be transferred in twenty days, for $60,000. Now if the price of bank stock on the day appointed for transfer should be only 118 per cent, he may then purchase as much as will enable him to fulfill his bargain for $59,000 and thereby gain $1,000 by the transaction. Should the price of bank stock, however, advance to 125 per cent, he will have to pay $62,500 for the necessary amount of stock and will thus lose $2,500 by completing his agreement.

Advice of an Experienced Financier.-Russell Sage, one of the most successful financiers in the United States, gives the following advice concerning Wall Street speculations:

"The fact cannot be too strongly impressed upon the minds of intending Wall Street speculators that for every dollar gained in Wall Street there is a dollar lost, and as the people who gain the dollars are always well-known old-timers in the business, it follows, clearly, that the people who lose the dollars are the new-comers. It often happens, too, that in an unguarded moment an old-timer is ruined in Wall Street; but it is always the other old-timers who benefit by his collapse--the new-comers do not figure in the deal.

"'Experience' in Wall Street counts for nothing unless the experience of many years' duration, or is had as a friend of a certain clique.

"No doubt the man who goes into Wall Street speculation with a $1,000,000 capital may, with great prudence, be able to win $1,000,000 or $5,000,000 more after five or ten years. But he will lose from half to three-quarters of his original capital in acquiring the knowledge of the 'wire pulling' that will be necessary for him to be possessed of before he can begin to be making regular, permanent, steadily increasing gains. Exceptions have been extremely rare, and were the result of mere chance.

"As a rule, however, for a person with less than $25,000 or even $50,000 to go into Wall Street is sheer throwing away of money. I have seen thousands of men with capitals larger than that go down with the loss of every dollar. Some of them were men of exceptional shrewdness, too.

"I tried speculation, when, in 1874, I bought a seat in the Stock Exchange. But when I found out what the conditions were, I simply got out at the first opportunity.

"I do not wish to be drawn into any controversy in the matter, so will not particularize; but the person who is thinking of going into Wall Street speculation in the hope of making money

when he has learned what is popularly called 'the ropes' would do well to ponder what one writer has written on the subject:

""Some brokers of the Stock Exchange simply bid the figures to win their bets which they have made with their dupes-are running a "brace" game. Pretending to trade in stock, they delude the speculating public with the idea that they bid stocks up or down according to conditions of trade, war news, and so on. In reality, their only object is to bid the figures against the lambs on the floor who bring in the money of the lambs on the outside. In the nature of things, that could be their only object. The business not being a trading in actual stock, but simply betting on figures, the only object of the thimble-riggers on the floor is to bid the figures so as to win their bets. Several shysters, acting in collusion, pretend to trade furiously with one another, their bids in these "wash" sales "washing" a stock up or down.' Life in Wall Street.-"The general public has an incorrect idea of the nature of the life of a Wall Street businss man. The spculators no doubt are compelled to live under conditions of unnatural excitement; but it is not so with the Wall Street operator who does not speculate-the man who buys stock with the object of improving its value, and retaining it. There is no more undue excitement in the life of a Wall Street business man than there is in the life of a wholesale dry goods dealer. The man who deals in money-that is what a Wall Street business man does-must be just as thorough a business man as the man who deals in merchandise.

"The wholesale grocer looks about the field before him, and discovers that by purchasing an agency in a certain section and spending some money in developing its resources he can make his general wealth so much larger; and so it is with all other dealers in merchandise. The Wall Street business man does not do differently. He simply examines the field before him, and his experience teaches him that if he buys out a lot of stock in a cer. tain concern which is in great need of ready money, he can lend the money to that concern, and the result will be that the value of its shares will go up. Instead of selling this stock when it becomes valuable, as the public imagines he is always anxious to do, it is seldom that the Wall Street business man cares to part with it.

"The Wall Street Speculator differs from the Wall Street business man in this respect, in that after buying a certain stock he either cannot or does not do anything to make it more valuable except in the belief of the lambs by the bidding for it which he

prompts his agents to do. Then when he sells it at a higher fig. ure the real truth of the matter is that the actual value of the stock has remained all the meanwhile in exactly the same place where the value was at the time the speculator originally purchased it. It is to persons such as the latter that fortunes are lost in Wall Street.

Bucket Shops are places which secure Stock Exchange quotations, or pretend to do so, and furnish persons of moderate means the same opportunities for gambling offered to wealthy speculators at the Exchange. Here anybody can gamble in futures by risking as small an amount as five or ten dollars, but his chances of winning out are about the same as if he had put up his money on a shell game or three card monte.

WAREHOUSING

Warehouses are divided generally into two distinct classes: 1. Bonded warehouses, under the control of the government. 2. Unbonded, or private warehouses.

Bonded Warehouses are buildings in which imported merchandise is stored until the importer makes entry for withdrawal for consumption and pays the duties, or until he withdraws the merchandise for reëxportation to a foreign country without paying the duties.

These warehouses are owned either by the government, or are private bonded warehouses, whose proprietors must obtain authority from the Secretary of the Treasury for receiving imported goods before the duties thereon are paid. Those owned by the government are under the entire control of the collector of the port, who assesses a charge at a fixed rate for the storage of goods, and this charge, with the import duty, becomes a lien upon them. The private bonded warehouses are required to be first-class, fire proof buildings, and to be used for no other business, and they must be approved by the Secretary of the Treasury before receiving any merchandise. A government officer is placed in charge, at the expense of the owner, and the business is conducted under provisions and requirements established by the government. The officer of the customs detailed to take charge of a bonded warehouse, and under whose supervision bonded goods are received and delivered from the warehouse, is called a bonded storekeeper.

3997

MONARCH REFRIGERATING COMPANY,

Form of Warehouse Receipt