A Week in Wall Street: By One Who KnowsJackson, Frederick
General
A Week in Wall Street: By One Who Knows
Jackson, Frederick
Wall Street (New York, N.Y.)
Expediency, and interest dictate that it shall be but one, and that
one the broker. He consents, because it involves less dishonor with
him than the others. They can be screened by his defalcation, and, it
is equally his interest to take care of his customers, as himself. And
if he has not too delicate a conscience, (and all men have not,) the
way is now open for the following management. When differences are in
his favor, he may avow his principals, and the losers must pay, or
themselves suffer expulsion from the board. Where the differences are
against him, he may keep the responsibility to himself, and as they are
very large, he will be able to compromise them, for the ten per cent.
deposited, and perhaps less, if he has not been careful to exact the
security. And when the whole is adjusted, if the differences collected
exceed the ten per cent. paid, there is a profit to divide, among them
all. And, if these operations are not sometimes performed with a less
scrupulous regard to figures, suspicion has been guilty of a libel. I
do not say, that this is a common practice among the brokers, but the
power of doing, and the facility of screening it, are equivalent to an
invitation to rogues to embrace it, and all the world knows, how ready
_they_ are to seize an opportunity.
AMUSING OPERATIONS.
Although stock-speculators, generally, affect to be very secret, as
well as very cunning, in their dealings, they frequently contrive
to find out each other’s business, and the manner in which their
liabilities sometimes develope themselves is amusing. It lately
happened that two speculators, Mr. A. and Mr. B., had been operating
in different kinds of stock, and each of them thought he had a
considerable amount of profits to collect, and losses to pay; and
the whole having passed through a broker’s hands, neither of them
was supposed to know who the principals were. Circumstances led to a
comparing of notes, when it was found that their claims on each other
were so nearly balanced, that they settled it by offset. It is believed
that at least one of them intended to collect his profits, and back out
of his losses; but that the other, more cunning than he, had contrived
to take the place of a third party, (Mr. C.,) who was the real seller
of the winning stock on his side, and when a settlement had been made
between A. and B., that B. and C. divided the amount of profits on C.’s
stock between them. By these means, the third party, C., was enabled
to collect half of a profit, which he would never have got otherwise,
and the other, Mr. B., was saved paying half a loss, which he would
otherwise have had to pay, or to sacrifice his broker, who, between
them both, was saved from a dilemma.
WALL-STREET NOT A SAFE PLACE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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