

THE TACTICS OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 651 



any peculiar system upon this complicated machinery of society, this 

 is one which it requires no great effort of sagacity to discover, that, 

 from the excess into which it has degenerated, it must excercise the 

 most baneful influence upon public morals and happiness. Were 

 the operations of the Stock Exchange solely confined to bona Jide 

 transactions, the evil would be comparatively a minor one ; but it is 

 the fatal practice of time-bargaining that has grown out of this system, 

 which so imperatively calls" for the interference of the legislature. 

 Of all species of gaming, this is at once the worst and the most 

 dangerous. 



Several great mathematicians, such as Pascal, Fermat, Bernoulli 

 d'Alembert, Euler, and others, devoted much time and attention to 

 the analysis of games of chance ; and the result of their scientific 

 labours ought to deter the most determined gambler from entangling 

 himself in that labyrinth of chances which sooner or later must over- 

 whelm him. 



Thus at rouge-et-noir d'Alembert has triumphantly proved that 

 it is impossible for human ingenuity to combine any system for win- 

 ning with certainty, or even by which the chances of the bank can be 

 in the slightest degree diminished. But time-bargains set all mathe- 

 matical analysis at defiance. The player knows not even the extent 

 of his risk, the very basis of all calculation. And yet strange as it 

 may appear, it is with the furor of this fatal species of play that 

 almost every branch of society is at the present day inoculated. 

 Compared to the time-bargain operations of the Stock Exchange, the 

 money lost and won in all the hells of Europe put together is but 

 mere child's play.* In the course of a few hours, millions some- 

 times change hands, and thousands are reduced from affluence to 

 beggary. 



When we are assured that a certain event can only happen but in a 

 certain determinate number of ways, and that we know that the advent 

 of each of these is of equal possibility, we may with safety assume that 

 the probability of the event happening in one particular way is equal 

 to so many parts of the certainty. For instance, we know perfectly 

 well in throwing a die, that we shall surely throw either 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 

 or 6; the chances are the same for all these numbers; there are then 

 six equal chances, which together constitute the certainty; each ol these 



* Since July last, by the fluctuations in Spanish stock alone, upwards of 

 twenty millions sterling have changed hands, and the war of misery and crime 

 it produced is truly appalling. To such a height was stock-jobbing carried in, 

 Paris, that Le Cafe' Tortoni received the name of La Petite Bourse. Such was 

 the crowd before its door at one time, that there was no passing, and bargains 

 continued to be made till past midnight. On the expulsion of the ladies from 

 the payment of the Bourse a measure rendered imperative by their clamours 

 an old countess, who had imbibed the fatal mania of stock -jobbing, took 

 lodgings immediately opposite the Exchange taking a position herself au pre- 

 mierher governor was posted at the bottom of the staircase, her cook halfway 

 across the street, and her femme de chambre on the steps of the Exchange by 

 means of this echelon of posts the fluctuations of the market were instanta- 

 neously conveyed to her. A committee of the Parisian Stock Exchange have 

 by a late regulation greatly narrowed the field for time-bargains, while in Ger- 

 many anti-stock-jobbing associations are forming. 



