CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BROKER AND HIS CLIENT.

There are two classes of brokers dealing with the public: (1) the speculating stock broker, and (2) the nonspeculating stock broker.

Preferably, the broker who does not speculate is to be employed. He occupies an unprejudiced position toward the market, and his opinion is therefore more valuable than that of the broker who is a speculator, and is swayed this way and that by every turn in the market. What is more

natural than that he should advise his customer to trade as he is trading in the conviction that his judgment is right and in the belief that the customer's trade will help his own?

A physician will not prescribe for himself or his family treatment that he will successfully prescribe for others. Some brokers acknowledge, without hesitation, that while they can successfully advise and conduct the market operations of other persons they are dismal failures in conducting ventures for their own account. Many firms of brokers and they are to be preferred in the selection of a broker-on signing articles of copartnership stipulate that no firm member shall be permitted to speculate. Experience has taught them that in this way only are the risks of the stock commission trade minimized. Large operators

select houses of this class for the execution of manipulative orders whenever it is possible to do so. By so doing they increase the margin of safety from the points of view of non-interference and financial stability.

There are traders who believe that the chances of success are increased when they trade with a firm which is identified with the operations of a leading manipulator. At times doubtless this selection is to be commended, provided the trader always remembers that his interests are distinctly a secondary consideration and that in an emergency the operator in question will protect himself even at the expense of the customers.

A trader in stocks should, when possible, make a study of his broker. He will find that brokers vary as much in mental habit and conscience as they do in appearance. There are brokers who will ascertain what their customers are desirous of doing in the market and advise them accordingly. The writer on more than one occasion has heard brokers offer advice that was absolutely contradictory in the effort to influence trading. For example: A was advised to buy a certain stock, having expressed belief in the view that it would advance, while B, ten minutes later was advised to sell the same stock short, having informed his broker that he believed in a decline. The singular result was that both customers lost money, each trader closing out at a loss on the minor fluctuations. The broker encouraged "trading" and profited by his commissions. There are brokers who will strain their consciences to the point of spraining to encourage trading, but they should not be difficult to detect.

In opening an account the reputation of a broker should carry weight. Is he an old or a new hand? Has he been successful? Are his customers of the permanent or transient class? Does he advise frequent or occasional ventures?

The exigencies of his trade require that the broker should preserve an impassive demeanor. He must not be disturbed by his clients' losses. If he were thus swayed by sentiment he would be in as dangerous a position as the too sympathetic nurse at the bedside of a precariously sick patient. The broker is navigating a craft that calls for a cool head at all times, especially in times of panic. If he were to sympathize with every client who loses, he would soon be a nervous wreck, retire from business or find an exhausted bank account. A successful broker of twenty years' experience has on his books small accounts aggregating $100,000, which he made good with his personal check. "I doubt," said he, in discussing the subject, "that I would pay those losses had I to do it again. The men were ungrateful in almost every instance. As a practice to be followed in trade I have no hesitation in condemning it. It is bad for the broker and bad for his client."

The honest and capable broker wants to have his client make money. A successful following is the best advertisement a broker can have. He will try to advise his clients so that they will make money. His advisory attitude to his client will be determined by the mental and financial capabilities of his client and the latter's attitude to the market and particular stocks.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE BUCKET SHOP.

A bucket shop is a place where bets can be made on the advance or decline of stocks. The bettor deposits his margin, which may be 1 to 10 per cent., and "buys" or "sells" a specified stock. The dealer accepts the margin and nominally "buys" or "sells" the stock in question. There is no actual sale or purchase, as the dealer simply "buckets” the order, which is to say, that he agrees to pay any losses that he may sustain should his customer make a winning wager, and on the other hand if the customer loses, the dealer or bucket shop operator, profits by the exact amount of the bettor's loss.

The theory of the bucket shop operator is that four speculators out of five, and even a greater percentage, lose money in the long run if they become steady traders. They aim to obtain the money thus lost, and are willing to back their belief that the stock market is "unbeatable," by the average speculator.

Bucket shops have been engaged in business for more than twenty-five years. Many unsuccessful attempts have been made to suppress them. Since their early days the bucket shop system has expanded to tremendous limits; in the aggregate a large sum of money is invested in the trade, and the statement that millions of dollars are an

nually lost and won in this form of stock gambling is moderate and conservative. Twenty years ago the only important bucket shop in Wall Street and New York was that of Louis Todd, a New England man, who conducted a large establishment at 44 Broad, which extended through to and had an entrance on New Street. Hundreds of impecunious, broken down speculators and clerks gambled there, and Todd, the backer of the game, waxed fat and rich, building two Broadway hotels-the Marlborough and Vendome on part of his profits. When he became a millionaire he retired from business. In the meantime, dozens of little bucket shops sprung up in lower New Street, until certain buildings in that neighborhood were regarded as little better than pest holes by the Wall Street community. Those bucket shops were conducted by cheap gamblers who, after running a week, would fail, the proprietor closing the doors and absconding with the money, while the "customers" were out the amount of their ventures. In a week or two the defaulting bucket shop operator would have no hesitation in resuming business in another office under another name. There may have been occasional honest failures, where the bank, account was legitimately lost to the concern's bettors, but they were very few. Except at rare intervals those engaged in this trade have never been disturbed. Dishonest failures are so frequent that it seems strange that the criminal law is not more actively engaged in punishing those so plainly employed in this form of robbery.

Since 1890 the bucket shop system has advanced to such an extent that it now plays a very important part in