BUCKET SHOPS 331 



basis for the convenience of the traders. Neither has the slightest rela- 

 tion to the real transaction, or its settlement or delivery ; but after 

 settlement is agreed to, or delivery made, they furnish a simple, sys- 

 tematic, economic and uniform basis for the payment of balances due 

 to or payable by the brokers, without changing the result one iota. If 

 there were neither "settlement" nor "delivery" prices fixed, the busi- 

 ness would be handled exactly the same as it now is, with the excep- 

 tion that the payments of balances would have to be made in a cum- 

 bersome and unsatisfactory manner. 



BUCKET SHOPS. 



A bucket shop is an establishment nominally and ostensibly for the 

 transaction of grain, cotton, or stock exchange business. This trans- 

 action is a mere pretense. The bucket shop exercises no commercial 

 function and is devoid of every commercial feature. The proprietor 

 with or without the consent of the patron, takes one side of every 

 deal that is made in his place, the patron taking the other. No article 

 is bought or sold in the public market and charges or commissions are 

 exacted for no services rendered. The market quotations posted in 

 an up-to-date bucket shop are similar to those posted in a legitimate 

 broker's office. The broker posts them for the purpose of showing 

 what the market has been on the exchange, as a matter of information. 

 The bucket-shop keeper posts them as the terms upon which its 

 patrons place their bets. The margins deposited with bucket shop 

 proprietors by the patrons, are nothing but the patrons' stakes to the 

 wager, and are appropriated by the proprietor when the fluctuations 

 of the price on the exchange, whose quotations are the basis of the 

 bet, reach the limit of the deposit. 



COLLATERAL READING: 



Speculation Not a Fine Art, By E. W. Wagner. 



Reports of the Boards of Trade of the several principal markets. 



"Board of Trade Book", 1910. 



The Farming Business, May 8, 1915. 



"Gold Bricks of Speculation," by John Hill, Jr. 



