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ecure a better rate; he, therefore, reasonably expects to pay a smaller sum for the same nominal rate per cent. or per share.
Such being the nature of the stock market, it is obvious that, while investment is a matter which requires much judgment, and should not be entered on without good information from business persons as to the probable stability of the various stocks for sale and purchase, speculation in stocks is utter folly where it is not gross rascality. It is seen to be practically not only akin to wagering on the success or failure of a number of persons engaged in business of the nature of which we know nothing, but it is actually this very thing. One might as reasonably go along a street, and, selecting at random any shop, wager that the owner's business will improve during the next week, or that it will fall off, with no surer means of guessing than the look of the shop, as run the eye down the share lists and put cover down on the chance that any particular stock will rise or fall. Nay, wagering on the tradesman's business would be much the safer, for one would see the shop and the goods, one could note the shopman
and his ways, and one might form a shrewd idea as to his probable success or failure. But of the various companies--nations, banks, railways, trade companies, and so forth-in the share list, the cover speculator knows nothing with any certainty, except what is general knowledge and therefore does not help his chance of making a lucky hit. For instance, I know that while Consols are absolutely safe, they will rise or fall as the relations of Great Britain with other nations improve or the reverse; but every one else knows as much. I may know that prospects look favorable or gloomy, but so also will others. I may form a guess as to whether the actual change of value in Consols in any direction will be greater or less than is generally supposed probable; but so soon as I thus pass beyond what is common knowledge, I am as likely to be wrong as to be right. To suppose otherwise is to suppose that where veteran statesmen who know what is actually being done, and the strings which are being actually pulled, can form no sure or trustworthy guess, I can who have no such knowledge. For a cover speculator, necessarily a simpleton, to buy or sell (nominally) Egyptian, Turkish, or Russian stock, with the idea that he is likely to form a correct opinion where a Gladstone or a Salisbury would be certainly as likely to be wrong as to be right, is preposterous on the face of it. And so also with the railways, banks, and other business companies whose names appear in the share lists. Those who have the best opportunities of knowing the state of affairs in a company have nothing like the con-
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