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14 Crime and Tolly of future Gambling. The crime is on the part of the Broker. He is a confidence man pure and simple. He ait* in his office, and sends out his circulars through the mail, to beguile the public into gamb ling. He takes the public’s money in commissions and margins, and when the public has taken the bait, in the form of his advice to buy cotton, has put margins and commissions in his hands, he, the Broker himself, uses lhe public’s money to sell the market down and take their margins—and vice versa. If the public has gone short, sold the market, its margins and commissions are used by the Brokers to run the market up, and again take the stakes. And so we see the public actually paying a set of confidence men commissions for robbing it of its money. Show me the books of the three largest -brokerage houses in New York, or New Orleans, and I can tell you how the market is going to a certainty. If the public is long, the market is going down; if it is short, then it is going up. It always goes against the public—the outsiders. Nothing is easier than for the Brok er to know on which side of the mar ket the public is. They keep the books, and have all the information. The folly of future gambling, is with the fool who puts his money in to the Broker’s hopper to be ground out the Broker’s grist. They say future dealing is specu lation, not gambling. Dealing in fu tures of any commodity, where actual delivery is not contemplated, is mere betting upon the rise and fall in the price thereof, and is gambling. It is the most injurious form of gambling ever invented. .The worst feature of it is, where the merchant sells for fu ture delivery, the lower the market goes, the more money he makes. He begins to talk low prices, urges every one to sell the actual stuff before it goe* down to nothing. He cares no longer for the interest of his custom er; as prices go down, the more mon ey he makes, and as he waxes rich, hjs customers grow poorer, becoming his slaves. But let the merchant who goes short beware. If the Broker can get the public into the market, short, the merchant is sure to be caught in the same trap with the public. The prices will be run up, and the mar gins of all become the Broker’s grist. Last Winter, in February, we saw the Brokers hammer a 10,000,000 bale crop from 12 cents to 10 cents in a few days. The public, knowing there was a very short crop, reason ably expected cotton to go to 15 cents and gambled on this expecta tion to an alarming extent. Had cotton gone to 15 cents the Banks of New York could not have paid the losses of the bears. What must be done to save the sit uation ? The brokers had the public’s mar gins and commissions, what could have been easier than to have used the public’s money, the stakes to hammer the price ten dollars a bale, and take the money staked on the gamble ? It was done. The price was driven down to ten dollars a bale on a short crop and the public robbed by the Brokers, who were the trusted Agents of the public. w—w .- - The public learned well its lesson, and, this year, is not gambling. The few who are yet so simple minded as to entrust the Brokers with their money, are on the bear side of the market, consequently, we see prices well maintained, with a tendency to advance on a thirteen million crop; and in the face of receipts, the hea viest on record. Future gambling upon the legiti mate industries of the people is an evil of colossal proportions, and of untold injury, impoverishment and misery to the producers. It should be suppressed by the strong arm of the law, at any and all cost. Article 189 of the Constitution of Louisiana reads as follows: “The pernicious practice of dealing, or gambling.in futures on agricultural products, or articles of necessity, where the intention of the parties is not to make an honest and bona fide delivery, is declared to be against the public policy, and the Legisla ture shall pass laws to suppress it.” This article of our constitution is nine years old, yet the Legislature has never done anything looking to the suppression of the vice. The people should see to this. It is in their power to elect a Legislature that will obey, and give effect to, the mandate of the Constitution. Talk to a member of the legisla ture about suppressing the evil, and he will tell you “it can’t be done,” or “it can be done only by destroying legitimate future dealing, and that would never do.” The seller of con tracts for actual future delivery must not be deprived of the power to hedge his future commitments.” It is a well-settled principle, that where the evils of any system out weigh the good, the benefits of the system, so as to become destructive to the public welfare, then, if the evils of such a system cannot be de stroyed without destroying the good, the good must go with the evil, and both be destroyed. What does President McColl of the National Manufacturers’ Association say on the subject? Speaking of future dealing on New York Cotton Exchange, at a meeting of the Association at Bluff Point, Lake Champlain, N. Y., on the 13th of September last, he said: “Many believe that the evils of the system, and the injury of the trade far outweigh the benefits de rived from it. It is generally under stood that Continental Spinners sel dom use the contract market and this may be said, also, of a large majority of American manufacturers. It is certainly a remarkable perversion of sound business principles, that on the New York Exchange, probably one hundred and fifty million bales of cot ton are bought and sold annually, while the contracts that mature, and are delivered, require only a few hun dred thousand bales to fill them. It is apparent that only a small part of this enormous volume of sales is for hedges against sales or stocks, and, that the great bulk thereof is for speculative, if not gambling, purpos es.” Is comment needed? Could the case against the gambler be made stronger? J. T. HowelL THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. “YES, DO SEND ME A BOOK” * Not a bargain book, bought from a haberdasher, but a beautiful book, a book to caress—peculiar, distinctive, individual : A book that hath first caught your eye and then pleased your fancy, writ ten by an author with a tender whim, all right out of his heart. We will read it together in the gloaming, and when lhe gather ing dusk doth blur the page, we’ll sit with hearts too full for speech and think it over.”—Dorothy Wordsworth to Coleridge. Such a book is ... . "ANN BOYD" by Will N. Harben and ‘‘The LIFE of JACKSON" by Mr. Watson Both began in the January number of WATSON’S JEFFERSONIAN 11 Books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the orna ment of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; companions by night, in trav eling, in the country.”—Cicero Thos. E. 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