Among exterior modern influences is the rapidity with which the large professional speculators obtain cipher telegrams, informing them of important events that transpire abroad which are calculated to influence prices in all markets. The effect of the rapidity with which such events are thus made known is that, whatever influence they may be calculated to exercise upon certain values, it will almost always have been discounted before the ordinary haphazard speculator gets to know anything about it. Close observers will be able to confirm this by having remarked that all political information is, as a rule, known sooner at the Stock Exchange than anywhere else.[32] So it is with all news that is likely to affect prices that are quoted in the public prints. Many a man has gone quietly up to the city some morning after studying his newspaper telegrams and bought or sold some stock on speculation, under the impression he was stealing into the enemy’s camp while the foe was asleep. On looking closer into the matter—of course when it is too late—he discovers that the information he has been so cunningly operating upon is already, for many hours, perhaps half a day, a matter of history. [Sidenote: THE ALTERED CHARACTER OF INTERIOR INFLUENCES UPON PRICES.] [Sidenote: THE CREATION OF SECURITIES TO MEET THE DEMAND.] [Sidenote: GETTING BEHIND THE SCENES.] [Sidenote: THE DIFFICULTY OF “CUTTING” A LOSS.] What is the altered character of the interior influences? One, and perhaps the most, important, is, that syndicates of powerful speculators act in conjunction with the dealers in the markets. There are distinct markets for certain stocks and certain classes of stocks, and the jobbers confine themselves more or less to dealing in a few descriptions. In a wealthy community there will probably always be a large number who cannot control a restless desire to be operating in the markets, who must now and again try their hands at speculation, as circumstances seem to present favourable opportunities. There are periods in the prosperity of every community when individuals are known to have made profits in their business, and in the natural course of things seek investments for their gains. Securities at such times are created on a great scale to suit the taste and appetite of the public. In the first stages of the creation of new securities considerable profits are made by _bona fide_ investors, which in course of time attracts the attention of speculators without means, who think that they have but to venture and they also will gain. After a time inflation sets in; and we may here ask the speculator if it ever occurs to his mind that understandings exist between the syndicates of professional speculators and the dealers, whereby the former get to know to what extent the public have bought by seeing the jobbers’ books? It is easy to see the power a syndicate with large means may exercise by such a system as this, even in a large market, supposing they could