When this volume of profit begins to be felt in the Stock markets, the harvest time for the professional speculator commences, and with the increase in the amount of the profits of the nation the number of securities increases also. The public securities quoted in the bourses of Europe at the present time amount to thousands of millions sterling more than existed a quarter of a century ago. Side by side with this increase in Stocks and Shares has the speculation in them increased also. Such has been the growth, indeed, of speculation that several joint stock companies have been formed, which are nothing more nor less than syndicates of speculators who have invited the public to join them in buying up a number of securities and making a profit by selling them at enhanced values. A few skilful Stock Exchange practitioners at the head of these concerns have, in many instances, made an excellent business out of the operations, by systematically raising the necessary capital and taking the securities off the market, which practically illustrates in broad daylight the legitimate method by which speculation may be pursued as a business, as we have already stated in Chapter III. [Sidenote: SPECULATION BY ESTABLISHED COMPANIES.] The fact of speculation having come to be practised by established companies, where before it was a kind of business that it was considered necessary to pursue as secretly as possible, proves how strong is the tendency of the age in which we live to make royal roads to wealth.[29] Speculation, as we know it in our time, is a very different affair from what it was fifty, and even thirty, years ago. Value in all markets in our day is unsettled with the lightning flash that laughs at the bed of the Atlantic as no better than a span of space, while the forces that close in on all sides, representing demand and supply, with a responsive thunder-clap, adjust the new level as each market grasps in a moment the cause of the disturbance. [Sidenote: THE DEMORALISATION CAUSED BY TEMPORARY SUCCESS.] One of the great evils which follow upon the increase of speculation is the demoralisation it brings in its train. Money easily made is very often as easily lost, after which it is difficult to rekindle that healthy desire to work which is fostered by the acquirement of moderately increasing gains through close application to business. Money that cost but little trouble to procure is generally carelessly spent, which, as a rule, does more harm than good to him that gained it. [Sidenote: THE NEW ERA IN SPECULATION.]