The times are very much changed since the head of a great financial establishment, long since gone to his rest, set sail from the shores of France as soon as he was well assured that Wellington was over-powering the legions of Napoleon in 1815, hastened to London, and bought up all the Consols he could lay his hands on, and thereby realised a considerable fortune for himself and his heirs at one _coup_. Here is a memorable case in point as illustrating the necessity of laying down a systematic plan of operations and by sheer hard work, and at the risk of life and limb, carrying it out to a successful issue. The ordinary speculator is not to be found with these qualities of dogged perseverance in elaborating a plan of operations, and keeping to strict principles of action from the outset, never allowing his mind to be diverted from his system except under certain special circumstances, for which a margin has been allowed. The electric wire has changed matters very materially in this respect. There is more ease in these times as regards individual locomotion for the operator who has keenly to watch the fluctuations in all markets; he has silent, but at the same time gigantic forces, at his disposal, which he can exercise in pretty nearly any quarter of the globe where there is need for them; but it cuts both ways—he can make a fortune in an hour, or less time, and lose it with the same rapidity, beyond hope of recall should the second line of judgment condemn the action of the first. [Sidenote: CLOSER UNIFORMITY OF VALUES IN ALL MARKETS THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEGRAPH SYSTEM.] [Sidenote: A SPECULATOR CANNOT HOPE TO SUCCEED IN ANY DEGREE UNLESS HIS ARRANGEMENTS ARE AS COMPLETE AS THOSE OF A MAN ENGAGED IN BONA FIDE BUSINESS.] All the markets of the world are regulated to a greater nicety as regards value since the more complete development of railroads and of the telegraph system. Each great article of commerce has its head quarters in its respective country, and value from that point is regulated at all the minor stations where it is dealt in, to use a metaphor, in the same way that the right time is flashed through the electric wire to the principal clocks in England at one o’clock from the Observatory at Greenwich. It is the custom consequently for all the leading merchants and dealers to be supplied by telegram with the prices current of those articles dealt in in all other markets, in which they are mainly interested. To compete with those who make a steady profit by buying and selling in obedience to _bona fide_ orders, a speculator must at least have his arrangements on a par with the non-speculator, if even then he can expect to hold his own without a still more elaborate and costly system of obtaining information, as his necessary profits can in most cases only be secured by his being in a position to anticipate a coming change. [Sidenote: THE DIMINUTION OF GLUTS IN ALL MARKETS.]