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Show SPECULATION IN STOCKS. Mural people r.pres a.-loni-hiiicut hat a mania I'ur gambling in stocks should prevail .so extensively through- ( )Ut the I'nited States, especially in ' ho cities that are the permanent or the spasmodic centres of bustle and trade; t md preachers preach against the de- :iioraIi.iliun uf this species of gamb- ing, and wonder why it is not legally restrained. Speculation is recognized is a legitimate business transaction, but where speculation stops and gambling gamb-ling begins is a question difficult to determine; de-termine; and these moral people who -hudder at tho iniquity of gamblers aro themselves often .speculators or the beuefieiaries of speculation. The national na-tional propensity to acquire lame mid fortune quickly, induces desperate hazards haz-ards upon the chances of immediate and large fortunes. It is characteristic characteris-tic of Americans to love to make and squander money rapidly. Tho last progress of which our strictest moralists moral-ists proudly boast, is due in a great do-grco do-grco to the gambling speculation which they condemn. Thcso moralists in this instance, as in many others a fleeting fleet-ing society, deprecate a condition which they assist to create; they applaud ap-plaud (ho cause, whilo they deplore the effect of it, and waste time and win a reputation lor Iiypocriey by such inconsistent conduct. American human nature will have to be changed before strict legitimacy will bo again recognized as tho rule iu business, and to effect this metamorphosis will require re-quire a long time. An evil that is national and permeates through all tho pursuits of life, can not he abruptly stopped by statute law, and such an evil Is the mania lor speculation. Wo arc a fast people and caunot afford to wait to amass a fortune by the slow accretions ac-cretions of years of toil, and this disposition dis-position must be checked beforo stock gambling can be restrained. Almost everybody speculates. The merchant is tempted outside of his strict business by a promising prospect of concentrating in a week the profits of years, and in he goes, to find kirn-self, kirn-self, in most cases, deluded and bankrupt. bank-rupt. Bankers become impatient at the slow, but inevitable, heaping up of wealth by discounting good paper and trading iu exchange, and fascinated with the excitement, and liglituing-stroko liglituing-stroko profits of dealing infancy stocks, invest their own and their depositors' funds in thcso risky securities; and often, to use a miner's vulgarism, "up the flume" go bankers and depositors together.- Lawyers take for fees a con-tiugeut con-tiugeut interest in the property that is the subject of a suit, and to win tho contingency play as desperately as ever a devotee of faro "fights tho tiger." And similarly act the members of nearly all professions and employments. To dam this avalanche of speculative gambling by a simplo statute, is as impotent an undertaking as was the effort of Xerxes to lash the stormy sea into quietude. The source must be regulated, and to get at it is a problem prob-lem that parallels in difficulty the long search for the fountain head of the river Nile. |