304 
Gambling in Farm Produce. 
bigli ; then the professional hear, who, knowing it is easier to depress 
than advance prices, sells below the current price property he does not 
own, and whose winnings depending upon lower prices, exerts all his inge- 
nuity in exaggerating the extent of the supply and fabrication of such 
reports of failures, panics, stringent money markets, and the great breadth 
of, and favourable conditions surrounding, the growing crops as will tend 
to cause the “ longs ” to become panic-stricken and throw their holdings on 
the market and thus depress prices to a point that will enable him to win. 
Next comes the speculator, who, being convinced prices are too low and 
must advance greatly, intends to profit by the expected rise, but, being 
“out of the market” and desiring to get in as cheaply as possible, becomes 
an active and unscrupulous bear, exerting himself to the utmost to depress 
prices that he may buy the more cheaply and increase his margin for 
winnings. Thus the efforts of nearly all the devotees at this singular 
commercial shrine make for lower prices, being effectually aided by a 
constant fear, on the part of holders, that prices will recede and entail 
loss. 
The bears act upon the knowledge that men can be terrorised into 
selling, and any improbable tale of disaster will have an influence ; hence, 
when they raid the market the air is thick with rumours of failures, panics, 
and widespread commercial disaster, coupled with the offering of more 
grain than there is in the country; the result being that the bull becomes, 
in turn, nervous, timid, and then panic-stricken, and, being unable to 
respond to calls for increased margins, throws his grain overboard adding 
greatly to the swelling tide, and helping further to depress the price. Large 
holdings of fictitious products on the part of the bulls are as great a 
menace to the stability of prices as are the immense offerings of the bears, 
and when forced overboard, by bear strategy, result in disastrous effects 
upon prices and the prosperity of the producer, the prices for whose 
products are determined hy these operations. 
The senseless terror which seizes the bull, often caused by his inability 
to respond to calls for margin, is one of the most serious phases of option 
dealing, making of the bull a most effective instrument in producing a 
rapid and great shrinkage in values ; hence, the operations of the speculative 
bull and bear are equally to be deprecated and equally harmful. 
How different is the course of the legitimate dealer owning or having the 
means of producing the commodities offered for sale ! All his efforts are 
directed towards securing good prices, steadiness in demand, and freedom 
from rapid and wide oscillations in values. The seller who is an owner of 
property never depreciates its value, nor does he depress prices by offerings 
of impossible quantities which it would be impracticable to deliver. 
Writing again on the subject in November last, Mr. Davis 
said that while the merchants, millers, spinners, and exporters 
were ever working for lower prices that their contracts may- 
return to their possession at a good round profit, there remain 
only the isolated and powerless producers interested in maintain- 
ing or advancing prices. He remarked that he was long puzzled 
by the apparently anomalous action of buyers of actual grain. 
Apparently they should be interested in advancing prices after 
they have bought, and yet their every utterance was of a char- 
acter to depreciate the property they owned. The mystery was 
solved to him when he ascertained that the moment one of 
