"Outsider" Has No Chance.
Speculation, for the most part, as in the case of this young man, means for the average intelligence a possibility for placing money in a side line where quick and profitable returns may be expected, wholly independent of the person's occupation. To the man who knows what the best of the speculative market is, the necessity for all of the time and attention and best judgment of the speculator is imperative. It is a business in which only the best business methods succeed.
On the boards of trade the commission merchants may be wholly apart from any risk in even the legitimate trading, taking the commission of one-eighth of a cent a bushel in buying and selling. On the Board of Trade of Chicago the designated leading speculative articles, in their order, are wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, mess pork, lard, short ribs, live hogs and cotton.
A year's grain crop may be 650,000,000 bushels of wheat, 2,500,000,000 bushels of corn, 900,000,000 bushels of oats, 150,000,000 bushels of barley, and 30,000,000 bushels of rye.
Bucket shops have been condemned by statutes as criminal and pernicious in many states in the Union, but anti-bucket shop laws are rarely enforced by public servants whose duty it is to enforce them. Prosecutions thus far, except in Illinois, have been left to private citizens or associations for the suppression of gambling.
The "bucket shop" has, within a few years past, sprung from comparative inconsequence into an institution of formidable wealth and threatening proportions. There are nearly a thousand in the United States. Every large city in the west has at least one. Having banded together in a strong combination they sneer at legislation. Opulent and powerful they scoff at antagonistic public opinion.