Show IAIIING STOCK BBOKIRS Tire folly and knavery main tempted men lire nowhere more apparent than in the action of tire bankrupt stock brokers at Virginia City and at ban Francisco In tho hugo olumo of business precipitated i precipi-tated upon them bj the Comstock boom tho legitimate commission of many of tire largest establishments for a few weeks past Is said to hao been at least ono thousand dollars a day Whether their orders aro to buy on margins or to buy outright tho money is furnished them by the buyers with their torn in is slon paid in advance They lmo tho easy task of trading on other peoples money their own commission being independent of tho losses or i > alns of their customers They have their own theory of tho situation They say to themselves I have received 1 t5000 from Tones with orders to invest tho cntiro amount o less commission In say Ophir immediate Ophir is 5 a share tollay and 1 an Imaginary I Imagi-nary purchase of the stock at that price J r Is entered on tho books tho mono of the customer going Into tho pocket of the broker His theory Is that Ophir for reasons satisfactory to himself will drop in the market shorth when ho can purchase the amount called for at say ono h ilf the price of tho imagmar first purchase call for additional margins on his credulous credu-lous customer and pocket enormous gains But his theor dont work Ophir goes up Instead of down and when the quotations show 100 per cent advance on tho original o presumed to hive been paid tho customer orders tho stock sold As the market for tho entire list of stocks is a rising ono and tire broker who his taken in his tens of thousands of dollars has depended on a falling one tho result is easily seen The knave is caught In the web of his own weaving ho his no stock on hand fo sell liS ordered ho hasn funds of his own to meet the enormous advance his customers will in a few hours demand their money some of them very likely at a revolvers mouth tliero Is no time to losehid own und his vie tims ruin comes as a flanh of lightning out of a clear sky This in brief is I the history of the fail ng brokers who If they had done their business honestly would have male money for themselves and their customers custom-ers |