of twenty-one had been so employed, it would have no
bearing on his work twenty-six years afterward; but as I have decided to
take cognizance of this stuff, here are the facts:

What to-day is known as the bucket-shop evil--that is, the speculation
in stocks over the counter at offices conducted by brokers outside the
pale of the law or the Stock Exchange--did not exist at the period
mentioned. This method of conducting speculation, however, had just been
invented, and many of the legitimate brokers, Stock-Exchange members,
utilized the new form in their ventures. Indeed, the number of brokers
and brokerage shops outside the Stock Exchange was as large, if not
larger, than that of the regular houses. At the time Donohoe treats of I
was doing considerable business for a young man, as will be evidenced by
my business card of that period:

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| THOMAS W. LAWSON & CO., |
| |
| BANKERS AND BROKERS. |
| |
| Dealers in First-class Investment Bonds and Stocks. |
| Offices: Boston, Providence, New York, and Chicago. |
| |
| President of the Lawson Manufacturing Company. |
| President of the McDonald-Lawson Manufacturing Company. |
| Vice-President of the Briggs Printing Machine Company. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

I regularly visited every week my offices in Boston, Providence, and New
York. At one time I had a Providence office in the building marked in
the cut in the Donohoe story, and the sign over the door was "Thomas W.
Lawson & Co."

It was in Providence, during the heyday of the
Waldron-Lawson enterprise, that Lawson ... first met "Jack"
Roach, whose apparent employment now is selling diamonds on
commission to the so-called "sporting element" of New York,
but who is acknowledged to be Lawson's personal
representative in this city. It was there, too, that he made
the acquaintance of Herbert Gray, who subsequently conducted
a gambling-house in Boston, and who recently served as one
of Lawson's captains and managed his trotting stab