he is instructed to get a client out of a large amount of stock for any particular reason, the suspicion of which he is not able to conceal, the price will be lowered to him in an instant, unless it be an easy market to deal in, or by chance an opposite influence springs up at the moment to improve the price. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred when they are made stock-brokers are comparatively young, who make a start for themselves after having been many years clerks. These men are eager for profit, and commence at once to go through a course of training which daily saps from their physical powers the very element upon which a cool temperament rests. The hurry-scurry, wear and tear strain upon the nerves which is involved in running from one client to another for orders, deprives a man by degrees of those qualities, if he ever possessed them, which are indispensable to the professional speculator. A man whose daily bread for his wife and family depends upon the execution of a certain amount of business, must of necessity manifest some degree of eagerness to do the business intrusted to him, and that eagerness keeps up a strain upon the nerves, and through them upon his physical powers, which weakens the capacity of forming very rapidly a correct judgment, and renders the intelligence liable to become confused under circumstances when to lose the head for a moment may involve a certain loss of money. Professional speculators are consequently very seldom men engaged in the business of dealing in stocks and shares for others, as the kind of labour is incompatible with the maintenance of the cool temperament which is necessary to success. [Sidenote: THE USELESSNESS OF HAPHAZARD SPECULATION.] There is nothing like unsystematic speculation to destroy the cool temperament of a man. A loss incurred through hasty ill-matured operations renders him impatient to recover it, which probably leads to its being doubled. If he chance to recover the loss, instead of pausing to reflect upon the surprise created in himself by a result only feverishly hoped for, he goes on blindly tempting fortune, only to experience ups and downs which unsettle his judgment more and more, until he begins to “plunge,” when all is soon over. [Sidenote: ACCURATE FORESIGHT.]