Life — May 16, 1901 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AN PENCILS jever Vir is kind. pd us IK a prepat Cancer #04 sons *DOB ammicted. Mass. Old Mother Wall Street Went to the cupboard ‘To get her poor shorts some N. P. When she got there The cupboard was bare And so the poor shorts got it in the neck, $ 3 $ ALK about money to burn’ fo-day's T bonfire of paper profits in Wali Street makes oid Nero look like an ama- teur firebug and a poor one at that. Gentlemen who went to bed Tuesday night dreaming about new yachts and country 1 8 are wondering whether this summer they will have the price of a trip to Coney Island. $ 3 $ af is to laugh. This may seem heart- less, but there is very little sympa- thy being bestowed on losers in the pres- ent squeeze. The red flag has been so conspicuous that any one who failed to notice it must have been hopelessly color-blind or an overly greedy gambler. The persons who have lost money have been mostly what are called “operators for a quick turn.” They certainly got It, and, in sporting parlance, ‘ot it good. The few unfortunates who parted with really good things—Delaware and Hud- son at 105, for instance—were simply rat- tled, and even they did not belong in the investing class. The people who have been hurt went into this market with their eyes wide open to the fact that they were taking a gambler’s chance and are getting just the same amount of sympathy as that bestowed on the man who loses at roulette or faro. 3 3 $ ATURALLY there are sad aspects to BP some cases, There are dependent women and children who may miss lux- urles which they were counting upon. In a few instances it may be a question of necessities, but the type of man who has been most in evidence in the past few months has not been the speculator of limited means. The market has had no time for him. So the cases of actual hardship arising from the so-called “panic” will not be many in number and may be practically disregarded. It is the poor wife who was counting on the third or fourth new pair of diamond solitaires, the poor young girl who was about to order another dozen spring gowns and the hard-worked father who was intend- ing to have a hundred-foot steam yacht instead of a naphtha launch that are the real sufferers in the present catastro- phe. T is becoming painfully evident that the New York Stock Exchange does not offer sufficient opportunities for the transaction of legitimate business. Out- side of the speculative specialties it has been impossible for weeks to get imme- diate quotations, and in all stocks re- ports of purchases and sales have been delayed from minutes to hours. These delays and inconveniences have com- pletely side-tracked the investing custom- ers of the board and have been a serious handicap to speculators, Inasmuch as the latter are the big sources of profit to the members of the board, their con- venience should be consulted first and incidentally every one else would be ben- efited, $ $ 3 HE building scheme and the big mar- ket coming at the same time have something to do with the existing con- fusion, but the trouble existed before the Exchange moved down to the Battery. ‘The real reason is that there are too any members of the Exchange for dull times and too few for good times. This is the same as saying that the membe vhip is not sufficiently elastic. The Ex- change has hedged its privileges with so many restrictions that they cease to be the convenience they were originally in- tended to be. If every one of its eleven hundred members were active brokers on the board, with adequate facilities for the transaction of business, the Stock Exchan; might be fulfilling its legiti- mate function. 3 8 $ A it is, in many cases the member- ship means only that Its owner may speculate at a reduced charge for each purchase or sale and that he is In no sense a legitimate broker. The fact that he is not on the floor to execute commissions keeps off some other man who would. 3 3 3 ORD knows, the game of speculation is hard enough with all the facill- tiles that may be granted to the man foolish enough to engage in it. Under the present difficulties—which should not exist—the percentage becomes entirely too strong against the player. s % $ ORTHERN PACIFIC common—"lit- tle nipper’—has, of course, been the cynosure of all eyes, and the wrecking of @ good many credit balances in broker shops. Tuesday the Northern Pacific road carried a certain number of passen- gers and a certain amount of freight a certain number of miles ata certain ex- pense, and the stock representing the ownership in the profits of this busin: sold not very far away from one hundred dollars a share. To-day—Thursday—the road is not doing any more business, and yet several hundred of the one hundred dollar shares in its ownership sold at one thousand dollars cach, There have been no discoveries of diamond mines in the Northern Pacific's right of way and its future is no brighter than It was a week or a year ago. IL is of no more value a competitor for transportation across the Continent. 8 3 8 HY, then, have its shares sold for bout ten times more to-day than they ve within the past week? Sim- ply because a number of persons have been guessing at what they thought the stock would sell at and betting money their guesses were correct. It is said u even Mr, Keene—than whoin no one igs more conversant with the tricks of the Wall Street trade—had no idea when he started in on Northern Pacific he would find so many persons backing thelr guesses with money, and that so many persons would be obliged to yield up their money as evidence that their guesses were wrong. $ $ 3 CURIOUS development of the mar- ket was the difference between the selling price of Burlington stock and the new bonds to be issued in payment for it. At the same moment the stock was selling at 180 and the bonds when Issued —if they ever are—were selling at par. One might buy simultaneously a hundred shares of the stock for eighteen thou- sand dollars and sell twenty of the bonds for which the stock Is to be exchanged for twenty thousand dollars, making a profit of two thousand dollars, less com- missions, on the transaction. This looks like an easy way of making moncy, but there's an “if’ in the way. Nerthern Pacific is cornered. In other words, the two thousand dollars profit or “arbi- trage,” hinges on Northern Pacific con- senting to the exchange of $20,000 in bonds for $18,000 of Burlington stock. $ 3 $ ND your Uncle Russell Sage flapped his wings and crowed “I told you so." A. Lamb, Watt Street, ‘Tuurapay, May 9. comicbooks.com