Ready to Make All Deals.
The bucket shop proprietor is ready to make all deals offered in any commodity that fluctuates in price. He may call himself banker and broker, or commission merchant, or disguise his business under the form of an incorporated enterprise or exchange. But he is still a common gambler. The interest of the proprietor of a bucket shop is at all times opposed to that of his patrons, as the profits of the shop are measured by the losses of the patrons.
Bucket shops should not be confounded with the great public markets of the world, where buyer and seller, producer and consumer, investor and speculator meet in legitimate trade; for the pretended buying of millions of bushels of grain in bucket shops will not add a fraction of a cent to the price of the product of the farm, nor will the pretended selling of as much increase the supplies of the consumer or lessen the cost of his loaf a farthing. Nor should they be confounded with the offices of legitimate brokers which they endeavor to imitate in appearance.