A very large proportion of the business done upon the Stock Exchange is nothing else than gambling. No stock passes. It is merely gambling in the rise or fall for differences. Here, as elsewhere, neglect, for which the whole nation is to blame, has allowed matters to get into a groove, and great difficulty will be found in getting out of it. In another chapter suggestions are made, and if the proposed remedy is necessarily a serious one for those whose business is to a great extent founded upon an illegitimate basis, some of them at least feel that the present system is indefensible, and the following pathetic extracts from a letter written by a member of a leading Stock Exchange firm merely express the conscientious misgivings of the best class of men there—misgivings which are more or less shared by all but the hardened gamblers of the establishment:— The evils of speculation, in common with many more fellows here, I much deplore; but at the same time, when three-fourths of the business is of that nature, what is the alternative to most Stock Exchange men? Either starvation or gaining a livelihood by means which one’s conscience tells you to be wrong; and human nature is not proof against the temptation. That is the naked truth, not to mince matters; and God knows it is an awful fact, to those who give any thought to these things. I am perfectly certain that the majority of Stock Exchange men loathe the business, and would be glad to get out of it. The subject is never absent from my mind. I have felt in a great strait over it for years. God grant that I may get out of it somehow; but how, He only knows. It seems queer to write like this to a stranger, but you have struck such a chord of sympathy that it is a relief to unbosom one’s mind. The above remarks also apply to the produce and metal exchanges. The misery caused in Lancashire and elsewhere by American gamblers cornering the cotton market is calling the attention of merchants to this branch of the subject, and with a little goodwill on the part of the Governments concerned there should be no insuperable difficulty in framing regulations which will greatly hamper, if not destroy, the possibility in future of such proceedings. CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY