GAMBLING AT FEVER HEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11686, 22 June 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

GAMBLING AT FEVER HEAT.

FORTUNES BEING MADE DAIU! IN

NEW YORK.

New Yore, May 2.—The craze for stock speculation continues to increase at an astounding rate. The whole country is talking stocks, and i to-day's newspapers print lists of speculaI tors who have cleared from £10.000 to | £2,000.000, besides a- host of minor lucky ones. It is said that several members of the Metropolitan Opera Company were big winners, and that a chorus girl of the'' F.'orodora" company won £50,000. Half of the clerks and office boys in the financial district are speculating and making money. Many brokers are clearing from £100 to £200-0 "per dav on orders alone, and one "house has cleared £200.0:0 since the boom began. liven Wall-street is amazed at the inexplicable upward movement of stacks. Union Pacific, for instance, recently below par, sold yesterday at 133d015. per share. I advancing" 13 points. Atchison Common. j which was at 73 yesterday, adeanefd to 87 ! to-day. and other stocks recently male simi-

lar gains. The stories of enormous profits are drawing thousands into the speculative He'd, and the New Yjork stockbroking houses can hardly handle their business, many refusing to accept orders except from regular customers. Most of the large establishments are working their clerks day and night, and keeping their offices or.en until 3 a.m. The strain is becoming so terrific that the brokers cannot stand it. Many have collapsed, and two men have become mentally unbalanced. Predictions of an eventual panic are freely made. Many responsible financiers regit! the technical position of the market as decidedly dangerous. On the other hand. here are just as many opti:ni*s. Senator Hanna. in an interview to-day, said: "There is absolutely nothing dangerous or threatening. The country is enormously prosperous, new conditions Lave arisen, and we cannot nunsure the present by the past." Stockbrokers in Chicago. St. Louis, and other huge cities aie being deluged v'th orders, and the bucket shop: or gambling offices which have opened in" hundreds of small towns are doing a roaring busitnss. In some villages stock quotations are telephoned from the nearest town, and the country people plunge heavily. Hundreds of servant girls and farmers are nutting their savings into stock speculaliens. Railway stocks, which are mostlyfar above face value, are the favourites, especially Atchison and Union Pacific. An amusing phase of the craze in New York is the fact that the Chinese laundrymen have abandoned " fantan"' for stock gambling, and bulletins giving stock quotations are circulated in Chinatown daily, steel being the favourite stock.

j Working men, even Italian labourers, are | heard discussing the market, with feverish | interest, and women of all classes crowd the I bucket shops, gambling away their savings. 1 Large numbers of newly rich mi r< from I the Western .States have poured into the | city, buying stocks "lavishly, and enormous : sums have been withdrawn from the banks jon this account. New York shopkeepers • are reaping enormous profits from the great I boom, and the jewellers are doing a big ' business with lucky speculators, who invest ' their surplus winnings in diamonds. I Hotels, restaurants, and theatres are doing ' the greatest business on record, and many ■ waiters in fashionable places are making J twenty pounds a week in tips. Most of the ! lucky* speculators spend their money exj travagantly. Some buy carriages, others . yachts, while one man ordered a gold- | mounted automobile.