as the half-year wears on, there are the dividends to look forward to, which is always an inducement to buyers; the great cities are filling with pleasure seekers, the import and export trade with foreign climes is in full activity after the liberation of whole fleets of vessels which have lain frozen up in northern parts during the winter. The young corn is beginning to clothe the naked furrow, and the various fruits of the earth are appearing, which only to read and hear of is to fill the eye with a sense of plenty that half converts a Tory Stock Exchange operator into an ultra-radical speculator. Under fairly favourable circumstances, the course of general business during the first half of the year is more active than during the second six months. The Parliamentary session is in full swing, and large numbers of people congregate in the capital towns of all European states to transact business, no small part of which is the investment of their surplus profits in public securities. When a new year is fairly on its legs, say in March, if war or such like causes do not interfere with the natural course of events, between that month and the end of June, a speculator for the rise should find, on an average, his greatest opportunities. In the London market more especially is it so, on account of the effect produced on the money market by the collection of the revenue, which always keeps the Bank of England’s reserve at a comparatively higher figure during the period named, a circumstance of considerable importance. In the first half of the year also there is more floating capital spread out, and more disposition to extend credit to catch the profits that are to be gathered when the nations of the earth are enticed into activity and movement, both for business and pleasure, by genial weather and long days. [Sidenote: CAUSES AFFECTING THE VALUE OF ENGLISH RAILWAY STOCKS.] As regards some stocks, there will be no need to make a special study of causes which affect the dividend; but this is not the case with railway stocks. A speculator in railway stocks must watch the course of trade, the colonial produce, the Manchester and Liverpool markets, and note the character of the business doing in the great staples of Industry. Upon the profitable nature of these trades depend very much the traffic receipts of railways. A speculator devoting his attention especially to railway stocks will, of course, analyze the reports of the various companies, carefully noting the weekly published traffic receipts. Then, again, there are the northern iron and coal districts, the operations in which affect the price of railway stocks in two ways which are obvious. A speculator who operates solely in railway stocks should be posted from hour to hour in such matters, or he will be assuredly “hung up,” as the saying is, with stock on which he has made a loss. [Sidenote: THE COURSE TO PURSUE AT THE TURN OF THE HALF-YEAR.]