The Shorn Lamb of Wall Street, 1882: Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons, Part 39
In both yesterday’s and the day before’s, William Vanderbilt 1881 sequential comic strip episodes, amongst the things shown being done, was shearing lambs. In Wall Street parlance, “shearing lambs” refers to taking money away from inexperienced investors. Including stealing it from the general public. The mere fact that this is part of the Stock Market’s lingo, says a world about those who make their living there.
Below is a front page cartoon from the October 18, 2025 issue of the (New York) Daily Graphic, titled The Shorn Lamb of Wall Street, by comic artist Cusack. Standing by watching, as the Shorn Lamb runs for its life, are, from left-to-right, Rufus Hatch, William Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Russell Sage. One of the Rockefeller brothers gives the lamb chase, looking as if he intends to act on their advice, “Kick him; he’s got no friends.” Spilling from the lamb as he runs, are pieces of paper with the abbreviations of stocks which had been artificially inflated by the figures in the cartoon, then collapsed after the “lambs” had unwittingly bought in.
Click on picture, to see an enlarged version.
Click here to find prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, so long as the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, during which I’d already had other material planned).
financial reform
NYDailyGraphic
— Doug
[...] to a group of lambs (Wall Street lingo for naive investors/suckers, to be sheared/swindled — click here for reference), saying to them, “Boys what you want this beautiful Holiday are overcoats. [...]