You can make sure that the government
will never kill fewer than 110,000 snakes in a year, and that it will
newer quite reach 300,000 too much room for oscillation; good speculative
stock, to bear or bull, and buy and sell long and short, and all that
kind of thing, but not eligible for investment like the other. The man
that speculates in the government's snake crop wants to go carefully. I
would not advise a man to buy a single crop at all--I mean a crop of
futures for the possible wobble is something quite extraordinary. If he
can buy six future crops in a bunch, seller to deliver 1,500,000
altogether, that is another matter. I do not know what snakes are worth
now, but I know what they would be worth then, for the statistics show
that the seller could not come within 427,000 of carrying out his
contract. However, I think that a person who speculates in snakes is a
fool, anyway. He always regrets it afterwards.
To finish the statistics. In six years the wild beasts kill 20,000
persons, and the snakes kill 103,000. In the same six the government
kills 1,073,546 snakes.
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