“The law of this State as to the purchase and sale of stocks is well settled. The purchase of stocks through a broker, though the party ordering such purchase does not intend to hold the stocks as an investment, but expects the broker to carry them for him with the design on the part of the purchaser to sell again the stocks when their market value has enhanced is, however, speculative, entirely legal. Equally so is a ‘short sale,’ where the seller has not the stock he assumes to sell, but borrows it and expects to replace it when the market value has declined. But to make such transactions legal, they must contemplate an actual purchase or an actual sale of stocks by the broker, or through him. If the intention is that the so-called broker shall pay his customer the difference between the market price at which the stocks were ordered purchased and that at which they were ordered sold, in case fluctuation is in favor of the customer, or that in case it is against the customer, the customer shall pay the broker that difference, no purchases or sales being made, the transaction is a wager and therefore illegal. Such business is merely gambling, in which the so-called commission for purchases and sales that are never made is simply the percentage which in other gambling games is reserved in favor of the keeper of the establishment.” This is also the law respecting commodity transactions. The rules of all the exchanges forbid gambling as defined by this opinion; but they make so easy a technical delivery of the property contracted for, that the practical effect of much speculation, in point of form legitimate, is not greatly different from that of gambling. Contracts to buy may be privately offset by contracts to sell. The offsetting may be done, in a systematic way, by clearing houses, or by “ring settlements.” Where deliveries are actually made, property may be temporarily borrowed for the purpose. In these ways, speculation which has the legal traits of legitimate dealing may go on almost as freely as mere wagering, and may have most of the pecuniary and immoral effects of gambling on a large scale.