In former years Wall street did a strictly legitimate business. Stocks were bought and sold on commission, and the broker was satisfied with his percentage on his transactions. He took no risk, and was in no danger of losing anything. Now-a-days a different state of affairs prevails. So great is the race for wealth, that many reputable houses not only buy and sell on commission, but speculate largely on their own account, taking all the chances of profit and loss. With such houses all is uncertainty. They may, by lucky ventures, reap large gains, but they are liable all the while to the losses caused by an unfavorable market, or a sudden crash in the securities they are operating in. No firm that does not confine itself strictly to a commission business can tell exactly from day to day where it stands. It is at the mercy of the market, and though prosperous at the opening of the day, the close may find it bankrupt.

The mania for speculation in stocks may be said to date from the close of the war. Then everything was in the flush tide of prosperity. Money was plentiful, and easy to be had, and men were led to engage in speculative ventures who, in former years, would have laughed to scorn the idea of their taking such risks. The petroleum discoveries added fuel to the passion for stock gambling. Securities of all kinds were dealt in with a recklessness that made the wiser heads of the street tremble for the future of the country. It was useless to offer advice, however. A) had amassed a fortune by some lucky speculation in Wall street, and B) was sure that he would be equally fortunate. What money he could raise was devoted to stock gambling. Often these ventures were successful, but very frequently they resulted in loss. Since those days the evil has grown, and has spread throughout the country. Men and women in all parts of the Union have their brokers in New York, who operate for them in their favorite stocks. 

Everybody longs for speedy and great wealth, and it seems so easy to find it in Wall street. Many win in the golden game, but many more lose their all. Nine out of ten who thus risk their money are ignorant of the street and its ways, and rely simply on the good faith and sound judgment of their brokers. But even if the broker is a model of honesty and business capacity, he cannot command success for his clients; he and they must take the chances of the market. They are playing an uncertain game. A sudden rise in the market may bring them wealth, or an unexpected depression may consign them to poverty. The only safe way for those who wish to get money is to keep out of Wall street, and seek a more legitimate and slower way of becoming rich. But, alas, like other forms of gambling, stock gambling holds its victims with a fearful power. They lose once, and venture again, but think that there must surely be a turn in the tide, and so they go on until they have nothing more to risk.

If fortunes are quickly made in Wall street they are lost there with even greater rapidity. You may see men in rags, so wretched that the Police Station is their lodging and the bread of charity their only subsistence, hanging about their old haunts in the street, watching the operators with wistful eyes, who were once high in the favor of the Exchange, and possessed of wealth and good commercial standing. They were ruined by stock gambling. Once they had palatial mansions on Fifth avenue, and were the favorites of fortune. Now they have no future, no hope. They have not the moral courage, even if they had the opportunity, to seek to regain their former positions. They have fallen never to rise again.

The best and most reputable firms in the street never speculate on their own account. They buy and sell on commission, and their only speculative dealings are for their customers. They take care in such cases to be protected by liberal "margins" which secure them against all possibility of loss.

All sorts of people come into the street to tempt fortune, and the brokers could tell some queer tales of their customers did they see fit to do so. When a person wishes to speculate in stocks, it is not necessary for him to buy the securities outright, though that is by far the safer way in dealing with first class stocks. If he can satisfy the broker that he is a responsible person, he will be allowed to begin operations by paying down only ten per cent. of the value of the securities he wishes to deal in. 

Thus with $1000 he may buy $10,000 worth of stocks. This percentage is called a margin, and the deposit of it is required to protect the broker from loss in case the stock should fall in value. If the stock advances the broker sells, and his customer makes a profit, out of which he must pay the broker his commission; if, however, the stock depreciates in value, the customer must either sell out at once, and bear the loss that attends the decline, or he must increase his margin to an extent sufficient to protect his broker should he decide to hold the security in hope of a turn of the market.

Of late years the control of the stock market has become centered in the hands of a few capitalists of enormous wealth. They move the market as they please, and their combined efforts will send stocks up or down, as they wish. They could ruin the whole street should they see fit to do so. That, however, would not be to their interest, so they content themselves with less sweeping operations, and on great "field days" in Wall street they fill their coffers remorselessly, at the expense of the smaller operators, scores of whom they coolly consign to ruin. Consequently these great operators are the objects of the most cordial hatred of the brokers in the street.