haphazard speculator is always very much discouraged when he has to pull up a loss, he should consequently avoid as much as possible incurring it. If he does not keep these important influences in mind, he will assuredly have to pay for the negligence. [Sidenote: GREEDINESS INVOLVES LOSS.] Then there is the fatal blunder made by almost every inexperienced speculator, of never being satisfied with a moderate profit. If he buys, and the price rises ½, he cannot make up his mind to take it, but must wait for ¾; when it has reached that he must have 1 per cent.; and when that rise has been attained to, he wants another ⅛ or ¼ to cover the commission. Like the dog, in attempting to grasp the shadow of his bone, he loses all. This is of daily occurrence in numerous instances, and is one of the fatal weaknesses bound up in the frailty of human nature, from which only the strongest and coolest temperaments are able to emancipate themselves. Speculators never set sufficient value upon the importance of avoiding a loss: they think only of the profits. As it is with our money affairs when we say, Look after the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves; so it is with speculators, look after the losses, the profits will take care of themselves. “Never refuse a profit,” is a golden motto for the speculator, which unhappily few of them in their greediness have the courage to adopt. [Sidenote: KEEPING ONE’S OWN COUNSEL.] In parting company, for the present, with the haphazard speculator, to whom we have yet more to say worthy of his attention, we would strongly recommend him if he finds it impossible to leave it alone altogether, _to keep his own counsel_. Do not listen to what other people have to recommend. People who are engaged in commerce in all its multifarious ramifications, care only for themselves, and for no other single soul; it is at all times consequently idle to put any other construction upon advice to buy a certain stock, tendered apparently, with the most benevolent motives, than that it is to serve directly, or indirectly, the purpose of him who recommends the purchase. In business every one is for himself, and, as the saying is, “the devil take the hindmost.” A man who takes to speculating, and has not enough stability of character to lay down certain principles for his guidance, to be rigidly adhered to as a rule, or is possessed of an excitable temperament, had better flee from the thought of engaging in so dangerous a vocation, for his ventures will assuredly result in the speedy dissipation of his inheritance, be it large or small. NOTE.—I made, purposely, no comments on this very interesting and important chapter, and trust all the terms will be as readily understood by the New York speculator as by the London speculator. H. W. R. CHAPTER IV. THE INCREASE OF SPECULATION IN STOCKS AND SHARES.