' 'Take 'em at 96-1/4,' is
the vociferous reply of a buyer. 'Mexican at 27-1/2-27; Portuguese
fours at 32-7/8-32-1/2; Spanish fives at 21; Dutch two-and-halfs at
50-1/2-50-1/4:' and so roars on the distracting Babel till the hour
for closing strikes. Much of this business is no doubt
legitimate--the _bona fide_ sale and purchase of stock by the
brokers, for which they charge their clients the very moderate
commission of 2s. 6d. per L.100. The ruinous gambling of the
Stock-Exchange is another matter, and is chiefly carried on by
'time' bargains--a sham-business, managed in this way:--A nominally
buys of B L.100,000 worth of stock in consols, to be delivered at a
fixed price, say 96, on the next settling-day. It is plain that if
the market-price of consols shall have fallen, by the day named, to
94, B wins L.2000--the difference between L.100,000 estimated at 96
and 94 per cent. A must pay these L.2000, or, which amounts to the
same thing, receive from B consols to the amount of L.100,000 at 96,
that in reality are procurable at 94. It is simply and entirely a
gambling _bet_ upon what the price of funds will be on the next
settling-day. These transactions have been pronounced fraudulent by
the superior courts, and liabilities so contracted cannot be legally
recovered. It is, for all that, quite certain that these 'debts of
honour' entail misery, ruin, often death, on the madmen who
habitually peril everything upon the turn of the Stock-Exchange
dice--dice loaded, too, by every fraudulent device that the
ingenuity of the two parties engaged in the struggle can discover or
invent.
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