The only protection of these people is a mutual defence against the common enemy, similar to that adopted by professional buyers at an ordinary auction against any innocent amateur who may stray into their midst. On the other hand, the mere presence of a known “bear” among these folk, completely paralyses all action on their part until his back is turned again. The writer now has in his mind’s eye a well-known figure, that of a powerful bear who was the terror of the speculative markets in the golden days when the public still played the game and all went merrily except for his malevolent influence. He alone could frown all prices down; and he once held them down against the whole of the furious remainder of the Exchange. It was a never-to-be-forgotten conflict, from which he emerged victorious and with a name at which even the puny bulls of to-day still tremble. Though be it said, he now does little but lend money to those whom circumstances, or still, occasionally, he himself, have forced to carry over. Few Bolza members will fail to identify him from even this slight reference to his fame. The heyday of the Buenos Stock Exchange was that immediately preceding the passing of the “Conversion” law which fixed a ratio between gold and paper and thus ended the speculation in gold which had grown all too vigorous on wide fluctuations. After that, wild cats, resorted to as the next best stimulant, quickly undermined the constitution of the Bolza and frightened the public; permanently, it would still seem, from its precincts as far as gambling speculation is concerned. Such speculation, in any magnitude, has been dead since 1906; in consequence of the collapse at that time of a gold fever boom of which a shoal of doomed alluvial dredging Companies were part cause and part effect. Nowadays, the real business, of which there is a large and constant volume, done on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange is in National “Cedulas.” This business has gradually gravitated into the hands of a few large brokers. The only drawback to these Bonds is their name, which might lead the ignorant in matters South American to confuse them with the _Provincial_ (Province of Buenos Aires) Cedulas, the corrupt mismanagement of which caused a great scandal some years ago. Still “Cedula” means a “Bond,” and it would, after all, be idle to wish to abolish the latter word only because some English Bonds may have proved unworthy of the prestige usually attaching to that designation.