The second kind of manipulation mentioned is undoubtedly open to serious criticism. It has for its object either the creation of high prices for particular stocks, in order to draw in the public as buyers and to unload upon them the holdings of the operators, or to depress the prices and induce the public to sell. There have been instances of gross and unjustifiable manipulation of securities, as in the case of American Ice stock. While we have been unable to discover any complete remedy short of abolishing the Stock Exchange itself, we are convinced that the Exchange can prevent the worst forms of this evil by exercising its influence and authority over the members to prevent them. When continued manipulation exists it is patent to experienced observers. “WASH SALES” AND “MATCHED ORDERS” In the foregoing discussion we have confined ourselves to bona fide sales. So far as manipulation of either class is based upon fictitious so-called “wash sales,” it is open to the severest condemnation, and should be prevented by all possible means. These fictitious sales are forbidden by the rules of all the regular exchanges, and are not enforceable at law. They are less frequent than many persons suppose. A transaction must take place upon the floor of the Exchange to be reported, and if not reported does not serve the purpose of those who engage in it. If it takes place on the floor of the Exchange, but is purely a pretence, the brokers involved run the risk of detection and expulsion, which is to them a sentence of financial death. There is, however, another class of transactions called “matched orders,” which differ materially from those already mentioned, in that they are actual and enforceable contracts. We refer to that class of transactions, engineered by some manipulator, who sends a number of orders simultaneously to different brokers, some to buy and some to sell. These brokers, without knowing that other brokers have countervailing orders from the same principal, execute their orders upon the floor of the Exchange, and the transactions become binding contracts; they cause an appearance of activity in a certain security which is unreal. Since they are legal and binding, we find a difficulty in suggesting a legislative remedy. But where the activities of two or more brokers in certain securities become so extreme as to indicate manipulation rather than genuine transactions, the officers of the Exchange would be remiss unless they exercised their influence and authority upon such members in a way to cause them to desist from such suspicious and undesirable activity. As already stated, instances of continuous manipulation of particular securities are patent to every experienced observer, and could without difficulty be discouraged, if not prevented, by prompt action on the part of the Exchange authorities. CORNERS