Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of AmalgamatedLawson, Thomas William
History
Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated
Lawson, Thomas William
Amalgamated Copper Co.; Gas companies -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Insurance -- United States; Speculation; Standard Oil Company
A few days after, a vessel dropped anchor off the island of Jamaica;
George Towle's body was carried ashore and buried, and Mr. Patch was
escorted back to the ship. A few days later, with weights of lead to
carry it to its last resting-place at the ocean's bottom, the latter's
dead body was dropped over the vessel's side. And somewhere floating the
high seas are a venturesome sailor-captain and a crew, who when in their
cups tell, 'tis said, strange tales of bags of gold and mysterious
documents.
As for the members of the Great and Good Court of the old Commonwealth
of Massachusetts for the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
ninety-six, they received, none of them could tell from where, their
promised vote-money in the form of a yarn that the "stuff" belonging to
them had been delivered to George Towle, but that Towle had decamped
with it to foreign shores, where he was living in luxury with Mr. Patch.
'Tis writ that some crimes are so black and foul that they will not
down, and when I read over what is written here, I wonder if there will
not some day be another chapter of "Frenzied Finance" written by another
pen than mine.
I sent two police officials to the island of Jamaica, and had the
contents of the coffin marked "George H. Towle" photographed. I could
not photograph the contents of the ocean's depths.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] A stock operator's one reliable source of information is his ticker and
tape. For the benefit of those of my readers who are unacquainted with the
paraphernalia by which stock-markets and financial operations are
conducted, I would say that the ticker is a small printing machine through
which passes an endless paper tape. The machine is run by telegraph wires,
and it prints upon the tape letters and figures which are abbreviations of
the names and prices of all the stocks and commodities dealt in on the
stock-exchanges and boards of trade throughout the world. The instant
anything of moment happens anywhere, it is reflected by a rise or fall in
the price of securities or commodities such as wheat, corn, pork, cotton,
etc., that are dealt in in the different stock-exchanges or boards of
trade. As soon as a share of stock or bushel of wheat is sold by one
operator to another on the floors of the different exchanges, its price is
within a second printed on the tapes in the different offices. Therefore
what the ticker "ticks" out onto the tape is instantly read by operators
throughout the world, and as "the tape never lies," operators turn to it
for their real information. When the ticker begins to increase its clatter
and the tape to travel fast, an operator will tell you its activity means
something unusual is happening. The ticker begins to talk at ten o'clock
each week-day morning and finishes at 3 P.M., with the exception of
Saturday, when the hour is 12 noon. These are the hours that the
stock-exchanges are in session.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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