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Show PROMOTING WILDCAT 1 From Collier's Weekly 1 The piomotion of wildcat and mad dog stocks, so fatal to the unwary lamb, never Is the least bit opaque to us Initiated vultures The method, ! unvarying ahd a6 time honored as the green goods and goldbrlcl; games, is llmple and direct I pon the heels of a genuine boom in an oil or precious metals district, ! some cunning Rice or Reinhardt obtains ob-tains a cheap option on adjacent territory. ter-ritory. It might yield traces of the neighboring patroleum or quart if a weak minded otlml6t could be led to dig or bore there. The up-to-date promoter Is not so visionary. He prefers to gouge and bleed the rich and ready get-mueh-f or-little vein in the body politic. Americans have u oraze for stock rer. tilicates. They will sink a thousand hard earned dollars In some just-heard-of fake when vou could not sell them a full weight double eagle for $19 So. "The International Golden Fleece Gathering company ' Is launched. launch-ed. After being listed or admitted to quotation on the New York curb 'wash" sales (closely related to my Mondav morning 'crossing" of Tobacco To-bacco Shops Common) establish a ruiice of say to a share This triumph duly is set forth on the official of-ficial sheets and copied by the newspapers. news-papers. The trap is set. Sucker List Carefully Scanned. The pockctbook investigator care-fully care-fully scans his sucker list, financial rating sheets, insurance company re- I ports, and records of legacies Bx-peri Bx-peri salesmen scatter far and wide to towns, villages, and farming com-ur'iiities. com-ur'iiities. The cities usually are seined sein-ed through the medium of newspaper 1 advertising columns. The road agents .ire armed with an artistic prospectus, which unobtru-sively unobtru-sively avoids any direct guarantee of instnnsic value in the proposition a 1 s'ieaf of crinkly certificates engag-ir:l engag-ir:l announcing in prominent type that they are ' full paid and nonassessable-" and the official quota- I tion sheet to prove that there is a recognized market for the "security" ,in the chief city of the l nlted Statos That is a deadlv percentage of ten 1 to one against the reckleas or un- guarded Investor. The plain arith-jmetic arith-jmetic of this widespread sto b g.nnb-lllng g.nnb-lllng curse should be taught in the schools right after the morning ; prayer. Here ia a sober prophecy : In the eent of our aggresshe country going go-ing to war against a foreign pow r. or because of aome equal great national na-tional disaster, the majority of the New York curb stocks would break practically to nothing a share. Al- I most every oil and mining Issue here has hanging over It a trembling avalanche ava-lanche of treasury stock They are floated solely to be sold Why will not the purblind public understand this colossal fact0 Proved Dividend Payers Dangerous Even proved dividend payers are dangerous It is forever a quess which way the cat will Jump. Urok-ers" Urok-ers" commissions and money interest inter-est charges eat up small profits Large losses are the rule. In my considerable consider-able experience aa a witness of stock market affairs, I have handled more than six thousand customers' accounts. ac-counts. The names of not more than four or five winners occur to me now. And always we have with us the cancerous bucket shop. No man can I foretell the secret moment when a previously conservatLe firm com-Imences com-Imences to break its pardonable belief that all customers are fools A party scheme Is to send buying advices fn a certain stock east and I north, and selling tips west and south The resulting order are "crossed,' matched' or "washed" against the customers at the high and low marks of the daw An elastic official of-ficial quotation sheet js a friend tried land true to the greedy bucket shop keepei All is well with are house while i the market goes In its favor If the clients miraculously gain a large credit balance the firm gracefully fails "Heavy overhead expenses, ' they call It: or 'a number of important im-portant accounts were underma 1 -gi D -ed." In these cases no one goes either to jail or Europe. The federal fed-eral bankruptcy law Is a fairy godmother god-mother to the skillful insolvent |