The best and safest way to be rich in New York, as elsewhere, is for a man to confine himself to his legitimate business. Few men acquire wealth suddenly. Ninety-nine fail where one succeeds. The bane of New York commercial life, however, is that people have not the patience to wait for fortune. Every one wants to be rich in a hurry, and as no regular business will accomplish this, here or elsewhere, speculation is resorted to. The sharpers and tricksters who infest Wall Street, know this weakness of New York merchants. They take the pains to inform themselves as to the character, means, and credulity of merchants, and then use every art to draw them into speculations, in which the tempter is enriched and the tempted ruined. In nine cases out of ten a merchant is utterly ignorant of the nature of the speculation he engages in. He is not capable of forming a reasonable opinion as to its propriety, or chance of success, because the whole transaction is so rapid that he has no chance to study it. He leaves a business in which he has acquired valuable knowledge and experience, and trusts himself to the mercy of a man he knows little or nothing of, and undertakes an operation that he does not know how to manage. Dabbling in speculations unfits men for their regular pursuits. They come to like the excitement of such ventures, and rush on madly in their mistaken course, hoping to make up their losses by one lucky speculation, and at length utter ruin rouses them from their dreams.
Although New York is the chief business centre of the country, fortunes are made here slowly and steadily. Great wealth is the accumulation of years. Such wealth brings with it honor and prosperity. One who attains it honestly, has fairly won the proud title of "merchant;" but few are willing to pursue the long life of toil necessary to attain it. They make fifty thousand dollars legitimately, and then the insane desire seizes them to double this amount in a day. Nine lose every thing where one makes his fortune.
The reason is plain. The speculation in stocks is controlled by men without principle, whose only object is to enrich themselves at the expense of their victims. The _Herald_ recently presented the following picture of the transactions in the stock market: