SPECULATION RUN MAD

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 3, Issue 147, 25 September 1895, Page 4

SPECULATION RUN MAD

The mail received here recently brought particulars of the "boom in wheat"' which was mentioned in a New York cablegram a month .v 0 The scene on the Chicago Board °cf Trade is described in characteristic language by the correspondent of one oft ne San (Trancisco journals. "With a swishing sound ,"' he telegraphs' "July wheat shot up to S2 cents to'. day. As it rose and soared a thousand hands of yelling brokers were sti ethed to bring it back to earth. It was a long and exciting but just before the closo of the session the turorc quieted, the price fluttered a while, and then dropped to 78J cents or 1 1 cents above the' closing quotation of Wednesday." But while wheat was going up and coming down, the B iard experienced the greatest d'av in its history. There may have been as much excitement on previos occasions when big "corners" were ruu, but the rec nt -'boom" certainly constituted a record so far as the amount of business transacted is concerned Over 2.50,000,000 bushels of wheat, it is estimated were "traded in." Of course, the wheat had no existence • br.siiels were, so speak, merely the names given to the counters employed by the gamblers. During the day Mr John C. .Schwartz, known as the "Corn King "was, to borrow another phrase from the correspondent we have just quoted, "blown nut of the market like a hit of chaff." The farmers, " the chinch bug of the professional market," appear for once 'to have got the earliest information of the condition of the crops, and bought largely for the rise. ''There were five hundred of them, " according to one account, " swarmiug about the Board of Trade, and they continued to buy wheat. The provisional, who has persisted iu believing that the farmers would get through has been the loser, The victim of hard times and lowwheat prices is getting richly repaid lor his confidence. " Th e pando< mpnium in the " wheat pit, " whero tiie transactions were carried or, was watched from the gailery by 500 women, who were scarcely less excited tK-m the active participants in the wild struggle for wheat and gold. In New York something of the same kind was going on. There 287,000,000 bushels of wheat wero " bought "'and " sola" in a few hours—making thfl total "counters employed in the two cities on this memorable day greater than the whole crop of the States.