The Semi Weekly Miner

A Wall Street Man's Experience.

George Alfred Townsend

I was talking with a man who had spent his life in Wall street and other speculative resorts of this country. I asked him how many times he had been broken.

"I have been broken up," he said, "about one dozen times, and had enough, as I supposed, for my life, and then have come back again and been fleeced out of everything, and have had to borrow stock to return to my work. I had half a million dollars twenty-five years ago; that was enough for me and I thought I had pulled out; but when a man has been speculating it is like a man who has been gambling—the men who have seen him at the faro bank follow him again. He misses the tremendous excitement of such a game. He goes in, and the first thing he knows, is flat on his back, and must perforce, continue to be a speculator to get even. I am now where I started when I went into stock matters—a little ahead, but not enough; and so I go to the street with the regularity of a faro-dealer going to open the game. I have had a hand in everything you can buy on margins—in mines, railroads, pork, coffee, gold bonds, construction companies, everything. I suppose I shall be at this business until I die."