As to the bucket-shops, if he is in doubt, he has but to follow the same procedure. The New York Stock Exchange authorities will gladly tell him whether the so-called “banker and broker” is really a member of the Stock Exchange, and the local bank nearest at hand will expose any fraud if it is called upon for information. As to the two-point margin bait, it is a good rule that the smaller the margin asked for, the less strength there is behind the house that asks it, and just in proportion as the margin requirement diminishes so a suspicion of the solvency of the firm should become fixed in the mind of the customer. This warning applies to stockbrokers no less than to bucket-shoppers. If the stockbroker takes from you a ten-point margin, and from somebody else a two-point margin, you may be sure your money is being used to finance the other customer’s trade, and you should lose no time in withdrawing your funds from such a house.[49] I often think that those who so freely criticize the Stock Exchange would have applauded it could they have witnessed the fight between the Exchange and the bucket-shops. In England, because telegraphs are a Government monopoly, the transmission of prices by or to bucket-shops is effectually barred, and the same is true of the telephone. But in this country the transmission of prices by wire is not a breach of law, and the difficulties that have attended the attempt to suppress the transmission of racing news by wire to poolrooms shows that even if it were prohibited there would be great difficulty in its enforcement. Notwithstanding these obstacles, however, the Stock Exchange labored zealously to close bucket-shops long before the officers of the law became active, and, while the work thus done was not published broadcast, it was none the less effective. Many a bucket-shop proprietor doing business a few years ago under a high-sounding company title probably never knew what hit him when the raid took place. It was the strong arm of the Stock Exchange working unostentatiously that did it, and in that good work it saved from further losses a large number of innocent people who used the establishment with no knowledge of its real character. As long ago as 1875, in its contracts with the telegraph company, the Stock Exchange began restrictive measures to prevent its quotations from reaching the bucket-shops. In 1878 still more forcible measures were employed, and in 1882 positive steps were taken by which the Exchange authorities personally inspected the telegraph company’s quotation contracts with its patrons. To-day this is carried to such an extreme in the determination to protect the public from the impositions of those who might in devious ways convey these quotations to improper hands that even members of the Exchange may not install wires from their offices to outsiders until the proper committee of Stock Exchange authorities has viséd the application.