THE WALL STREET GAMBLING SCHOOL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3074, 19 December 1908, Page 4

THE WALL STREET GAMBLING SCHOOL.

It is curious that whale an antigambling tidal wave is surging over America, leading in some cases to the closing of racecourses, the sentiment that is pushing the nation to this extreme remains complacently indifferent to Wall street, where every day a huge school of gambl ra meets for the undisguised purpose of backing their opinions in millions upon the market fluctuations of the next hour. From tht, moral standpoint, the New York Stock Exchange is perhaps neither better nor worse than the similar institutions in other capitals, where the bull and bear game is played. But it differs in the sense that no hypocritical concealment regarding the nature of its proceedings is practised. It does not pretend to be anything else than what it really is—a place where gamblers meet to play all they know. Intrinsically, the London Stock exchange may not be much different, but there is a respectable British pretence of regarding it as such which is responsible for a curious contrast in the manner of reporting the game as played on each side of the Atlantic. And nowhere is this more marked i than in the staidly matter-of fact columns of the. London "Times." Every day "The Times" has a long report cabled from Wall street, descriptive of the various sessions of the Exchange, which often reads like nothing so much as the account of a financial prize fight with the gloves off, and under catch-as-uatch-can rules. The doings of the London Exchange, and of the various European bourses are dealt with in the neighbouring columns of the paper as ordinary business transactions, while those of New York, the biggest of them all, are presented in the light of a mere game, in which everything is considered fair.