A clever young man, of twenty-five years of age, bought ten shares in
the Pennsylvania Central Railroad. The stock went up five dollars per
share, and he made fifty dollars by the operation. His mother,
knowing his temperament, said to him, "I wish you had lost it." But,
encouraged, he entered another operation, and took ten shares in
another railroad and made two hundred dollars. By this time he was
ready for the wildest scheme. He lost, in three years, forty thousand
dollars, ruined his health, and broke his wife's heart. Her father
supports them chiefly now. The unfortunate has a shingle up, in a
small court, among low operators. Such a man as this is unfit for this
commercial sphere. He would have been unfit for a pilot, unfit for
military command, unfit for any place that demands steady nerve, cool
brain, and well-balanced temperament.

But, while there is a legitimate sphere for the broker and operator,
there are transactions every day undertaken in our cities that can
only be characterized as superb outrage and villany; and there are
members of Christian churches who have been guilty of speculations
that, in the last day, will blanch their cheek, and thunder them
down to everlasting companionship with the lowest gamblers that ever
pitched pennies for a drink.

It is not necessary that I should draw the difficult line between
honorable and dishonorable speculation. God has drawn it through every
man's conscience. The broker guilty of "cornering" as well knows that
he is sinning against God and man, as though the flame of Mount Sinai
singed his eyebrows. He hears that a brother broker has sold "short,"
and immediately goes about with a wise look, saying: "Erie is going
down--Erie is going down; prepare for it." Immediately the people
begin to sell; he buys up the stock; monopolizes the whole affair;
drags down the man who sold short; makes largely, pockets the gain,
and thanks the Lord for great prosperity in business. You call it
"cornering." I call it gambling, theft, highway robbery, villany
accursed.

It is astonishing how some men, who are kind in their families, useful
in the church, charitable to the poor, are utterly transformed of the
devil as soon as they enter the Stock Exchange. A respectable member
of one of the churches of the city went into a broker's office and
said: "Get me one hundred shares of Reading, and carry it; I will
leave a margin of five hundred dollars." Instead of going up,
accord