Or if on a certain day the customer takes advantage of a rise in the commodity bet upon, and insists upon closing out the deal, it is most frequently settled by the bucket shop upon the lowest figure for the day. Occasionally, indeed, where a bucket shop keeper has allowed one or more customers to "win" a considerable figure from it through some untoward turn in figures, the whole shop closes up and disappears, leaving the victims no redress at law for the reason that they have left the money voluntarily in the hands of the sharpers. Occasionally the country branch office of one of these central bucket shops may clean out a town of its currency until the scarcity of money in the place may demoralize the every-day business of the town.
That the man who tries to beat the bucket shop has an impossible task in front of him in investigating the $10 bet, the commonest in the shop. The man with the bill steps up to the window and asks to buy ten shares of American Sugar at $110 a share, paying 25 per cent out of the $10 as commission. Then, counting that the bucket shop might be as nearly straight as such an institution can be, remember that the decline of Sugar three-quarters of a point will wipe out the bettor's $10, while for him to win another $10, Sugar will have to advance to $111.25. In short, the customer is betting against a proposition which will lose him $10 if Sugar declines 75 cents, while to win $10 it must advance $1.25, in either case the bucket shop holding his money and taking 25 cents in tolls.
Other "Fakes" "Boost" the Game.
In the machinations of the bucket shop interests and those of kindred concerns that are garnering this $100,000 a day from the American people, the fake trade journal has had much to do; the fake mercantile agency, reporting extravagantly upon the responsibility and wealth of the schemers, has played extensively upon the credulity of men and women; fake banks and bankers have come into existence for the completion of the work of the others, and have been by no means the least in the category of rascality; the whole aggregation has been lending back and forth the "sucker lists," which is an interchangeable lists of names and addresses of men and women who have "bitten" at one scheme and may be promising of a rise to another of different type under a new title.
On file in the office of a Chicago man of affairs at the present moment is a series of interesting letters, which he shows occasionally to a friend. These letters are especially eloquent of a spirit of investment which is in the country today and which prompts the "biting" at almost any sort of flaunting announcement of quick riches. The letters are from a young man holding an official job under the government at Washington.
Big Dividend Promises False.
The first letter is apologetic for reminding the addressee that he is an old friend of the writer's family; but it recites that the young man has about $200 in bank which he has saved from his salary, and which he is disposed to invest with a certain company if his friend in Chicago thinks the prospects are in line with good business and responsibility.
Evidently the Chicago man does not regard the concern as dependable, for the next letter expresses thanks for saving the writer loss, but asks a further question of a concern that promises 20 per cent a month on cash investments in grain.