get to see the books only of the larger jobbers. We will suppose, for instance, the public can be induced to buy a certain stock largely on some fictitious information. If, at the close of each of three or four days buying for the rise, it was ascertained by an examination of the jobbers’ books that accounts were open in a stock to the extent of half a-million of money by over a hundred different purchasers, it becomes evident that there is a tree of ripe fruit grown as it were by magic, and the syndicate has nothing to do but to pluck it. Out of a hundred buyers at least a third would probably rush out and take their loss at the first indication of their being on the wrong scent. One of the great faults which characterises all speculators, with very few exceptions, is that they cannot summon courage to “cut a loss” at once. The object of buying was to gain, and the mind is associated with a profit in connection with a rise on the transaction, and it is very difficult to change about, and gain, in a negative sense, by not losing more. It is upon this weakness of speculators individually, in not being able to “cut a loss,” that bands of marble-hearted riggers lure the public into holes, and squeeze their purses before they let them out. With such tenacity do speculators hold on to a stock, hoping for a recovery when they have made a loss, that they will leave it as a man drops into the sea from a burning ship, only when he is singed by the flames. Many speculators on discovering they are on the wrong tack gather themselves up _pour mieux sauter_, and turn round and sell for the fall, believing they shall be quick enough to catch it and swim with the downward stream before it is spent. In the greater number of cases, such speculators watch the fall far enough to be sure they are right in their view of the way the price is going, and then they “get in.” What is the usual result? Hesitation in the second operation has caused them to miss the mark, and the account is closed with a loss on both transactions; the speculator having bought at or near the top, and sold at or near the bottom. CHAPTER VI. CACOETHES OPERANDI. [Sidenote: WAITING FOR EXTREMES.] [Sidenote: REACTION GENERALLY MORE RAPID AFTER A SHARP RISE.]