Although we have already alluded to this question of “turns,” in referring to the forces, so to speak, in the markets which are arrayed against the speculator, we have thought it advisable, subsequently, to give it a separate chapter. The “turn” is a known quantity about which there is no doubt, and in which there is no element of chance to be reckoned upon according to any doctrine of probabilities, as sometimes favouring one side, and sometimes the other. The “turn” may be described in brief as the income of the jobber, or in other words that fractional part of the whole sum which, if a buyer of some stock, he gets by its sale in excess of what he pays—and if he be on the other hand, a seller, the “turn” is that proportional part of the whole sum which he gets in excess on buying back the stock, in order to square his book. Supposing the two operations of a purchase and a sale proceed first from a bull speculator, and secondly from a bear; the jobber in the one case covers himself as soon as he can by a purchase of the stock sold by the first operation, and by the sale of an amount equal to that bought by the second operation. [Sidenote: THE “TURN” A LOSS ON GOING INTO AND ALSO IN COMING OUT OF THE MARKET.] The “turn” comes in the second rank of obstacles which stand between the speculator and the goal, or profit, which it is his aim to reach, and is the most formidable of the fixed and, it may be said, inevitable, elements arrayed against him at the start. When a speculator enters the markets, therefore, he has to do his share of keeping both the broker and the jobber, and that not only when he commences his operations, but also when he finishes. There is the “turn” to be paid on going in, and also on coming out. The same may be said of the broker, only under certain circumstances. It is customary for a broker to charge no second commission on closing an operation, if it be done in the same account as that in which the operation was commenced. As speculators, however, especially the haphazard kind, are never contented to take small profits, and get out of the markets, they almost invariably pay a second commission. Thus there may be said to be two double fixed quantities, which are piled up against a speculator at the start.[44] [Sidenote: THE DIFFERENCE IN THE CHARACTER OF THE “TURN” AS COMPARED WITH FORMER TIMES.] [Sidenote: SPECIAL DANGER OF SPECULATING IN A STOCK THAT IS QUOTED VERY WIDE.]