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Gambling in Farm Produce. 
fact, it may be affirmed, on tbe sure basis of observation and ex- 
perience, that every step which has been taken by the central 
authority to arrest the progress of disease has been always abreast, 
if not in advance, of the public opinion of the day. 
G. T. Brown. 
GAMBLING IN FARM PRODUCE. 
Origin and Description of the System. 
During the last twenty years a system of trading in some of the 
principal farm products, and a few other leading commodities 
of the world, has sprung into existence, the most important 
features of which are the forestalling of the crops by selling 
them before they are grown, the sale for future delivery of goods 
which the sellers do not possess, an enormous amount of re- selling 
without the transfer of the commodities, rampant speculation, a 
method of “ hedging,” conducted after the professional betting- 
man’s plan of book-making, and the establishment of clearing- 
houses in which a daily or weekly settlement of sums due on 
variations in prices is effected. This is known as the option or 
future system. 
There is some uncertainty as to the precise date of its origin. 
Mr. C. W. Smith, Editor of Whitaker, Whitehead & Co.’s Weekly 
Trade Finance and Cotton Circular, who has written a book 1 on the 
subject, says that cotton was sold on the future system in England 
between 1866 and 1870 to a small extent, actual shipments being 
made, however, against all contracts. Between 1870 and 1876, he 
adds, these contracts took the form of “ options,” but only a few 
firms dealt in them. In the latter year a special form of contract 
for these dealings in cotton was prepared to prevent abuse. In 
about the same year the system came into use in the United States 
in connection with wheat, maize, and certain other commodities, 
and possibly it was known in connection with cotton at least as 
early as in this country. Indeed, America has usually been cre- 
dited with the invention of the system, and it is only Mr. Smith’s 
statement with respect to cotton which appears to traverse that 
impression. At any rate, it. was in the United States that the 
system first sprang up in connection with grain and some other 
ordinary products of the farm. It was not until 1883 that a 
1 Depression in Trade, Land, Agriculture, and Silver. London: Sampson 
Low, Marston, & Co. 
