Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t4.161

c5.t4.161

We may also note some practices of a more developed competition known to-day as “dealing in futures” or “cornering.” We have already noticed the instance of the daring youth of Benares. Receiving the earliest intimation of the arrival of a ship in port, he proceeded to buy it up whole-sale on credit and thus established a “corner” in foreign produce which sent up prices to his immense profits.⁹ The same youth had, sometime before, sent up the price of grass by a “limitation of output” in agreement with other “producers.”¹⁰ In another instance two dealers in pots and pans apportioned the streets between themselves, each to hawk in his own district, and they also agreed that “one might try the streets which the other had already been into.”¹¹