This describes the two parties generally; yet the men who constitute them are daily changing, and out of a thousand who may be among the bears to-day, half might be found with the bulls a week hence. Some may be on both sides at once, pushing one stock up and another down, a kaleidoscopic jumble of half insane human beings, whose statements as to value, conditions, and their own intentions bear no relation to the truth and are not expected to do so. It is a contest of cunning, a war of falsehood, a battle of deception. And those who fall by the wayside excite no pity, receive no consideration, and if they rise not by their own exertion, they are kicked out of the way.
Professionally speaking, lawyers have been called legal liars, but compared to stock manipulators they are walking examples of truth and veracity. A lawyer may lie and can if necessary, but a stock operator lies all the time; from sheer force of habit. A lawyer might lie to judge, jury, or his own client, but there is some chance that he may tell the truth to a brother lawyer; while stock brokers will lie to each other on all occasions, and if necessary swear to it.
A few other great cities have their lesser Wall streets, and where Weston & Hill, like a deadly upas tree, flourished for a time, a mimic Wall Street existed. It had its clique of bulls and bears, its _Market News_, its leaders, large and small, its daily contest of lies and money power, and though Weston & Hill were not among its members, their broker, Simmons, was--an active and unscrupulous mouthpiece, ready to fleece all fellow-brokers, or the firm he acted for, if necessary. He had bought or sold Rockhaven stock, as its prime mover, Weston, directed; circulated lies galore for three months; and by the occult process of manipulation had slowly worked the price up from one to ten dollars per share, and had so colored his lies and so managed the deal--now selling a thousand shares quietly, then buying them back ostentatiously--that, as the phrase goes, "the street was kept guessing all the time."
Some believed it was a good investment; more felt sure it was a "wildcat," and that soon or late the bubble would burst and the stock go down to rise no more. Only Simmons and Weston knew what was to be the outcome, but neither was likely to tell. More than that, they knew how much stock was in actual circulation or held by the street, and beyond that, a close approximation of how great a short interest had accrued. Each day since Rockhaven had been quoted at all, Simmons had made entry of all recorded sales, and knowing how much had been issued and how much bought in by himself, endeavored to keep track of it. It was fallacious, for the same stock might be bought and sold a hundred times, and the long and short disparity remain the same. One thing he knew,--how much had actually been sold, and out of this (a matter of thirty thousand) fully twenty thousand, he believed, would never be heard of on the street.