Wall Street begins on the east side of Broadway, opposite Trinity Church, and terminates at the East River. It is about half a mile from the extreme southern end of the island, and about the same distance from the City Hall. It is a narrow street, about fifty feet in width, and slopes gradually from Broadway to the river. It is lined on both sides with handsome brown stone, yellow stone, granite, marble, iron, and brick buildings, and the Treasury and Custom-House rear their magnificent fronts about midway between the termini of the street. They are diagonally opposite each other. The buildings are covered with a multiplicity of signs, rivalling the edifices of Nassau street, in this respect. Scarcely a house has less than a score of offices within its walls, and some contain at least three times as many. Space is valuable, and rents are high in Wall street, and many of the leading firms in it have to content themselves with small, dark apartments, which a conscientious man would hesitate to call an “office.” The rents paid for such quarters are enormous, and the buildings yield their owners large incomes every year. The streets running into Wall street, on the right and left, are also occupied for several blocks with the offices of bankers and brokers, and are all included in the general term “Wall street,” or “The Street.”

WALL STREET.

Wall street first appears in the history of the city as a portion of a sheep pasture which was used in common by the inhabitants of New Amsterdam. Its natural condition was partly rolling upland and partly meadow of a swampy character. The name of the street originated thus: About the middle of the seventeenth century, the English in the New England colonies began to press heavily upon the Dutch in New Netherlands, and kept the worthy burghers of New Amsterdam in a constant dread of an invasion. Influenced by this feeling, the city authorities resolved to fortify the place, and in 1653 constructed a wall or stockade across the island, from river to river just beyond the line of the village. This wall passed directly across the old sheep pasture. Citizens were forbidden to build within 100 feet of the stockade, this open space being reserved for the movements of troops. It soon became a prominent highway, and the eastern portion has since remained so. The anticipated attack on the city was not made, but the wall was kept in good condition. Houses crept up close to the wall on the city side, and began to appear on the opposite side just under the wall. Thus a new street was formed, through which ran the old stockade. The open space along the wall was originally called The Cingel, signifying “the ramparts.” Soon after the town reached the limit of the military reservation, persons residing here were spoken of as living “long de Wal,” and from this the street came to be called “the Wall street,” which name it has ever since borne. The wall having fallen into decay, was demolished about the year 1699, and its stones were used in the construction of the old City Hall, which stood at the intersection of Wall and Nassau streets, the site now occupied by the Sub-Treasury of the United States. The old building was used for the various purposes of the city government until the close of the Revolution. It contained, besides the council and court rooms, a jail for the detention and punishment of criminals, a debtors’ prison, which was located in the attic, a fire-engine-room, a cage and a pillory. A pair of stocks was set up on the opposite side of the street, wherein criminals were exposed to the indignant gaze of the virtuous public.

At the close of the Revolution, the City Hall was enlarged and improved for the use of the General Government. It thus became the first capitol of the new Republic, and was known as Federal Hall. The first Congress of the United States assembled within its walls in the year 1789, and upon its spacious portico, in the presence of an immense multitude, George Washington took the oath to support and defend the constitution as first President of the United States.

Wall street was originally taken up with private residences, and the old views represent it as well shaded with trees. Even as late as 1830 it presented a very rural appearance between Broadway and William street. Prior to the Revolution, the lower part of the street had been built up with stores as far as Front street, and had become the centre of mercantile affairs in the city, the row of stores on Wall street being the first erected beyond Water street. About the year 1792, the old Tontine Coffee House was erected on the northwest corner of Wall and Water streets, and this became the favorite rendezvous for the city merchants, by whom, indeed, it was erected and controlled. In 1791 the Bank of New York was located at the corner of William street, and marked the first encroachment upon the strictly private portion of the street. It was also the first effort to make this locality the centre of the financial operations of the city. Other institutions and private bankers soon followed, and the character and architecture of the street began to undergo a change. The work of improvement went on steadily, and the Wall street of to-day is the result. Famous lawyers have also had their offices in this street. Alexander Hamilton’s sign might once have been seen here, not far from where his humble monument now stands in Trinity Churchyard, and the name of Caleb Cushing is still to be found near a doorway just below Broadway.

UNITED STATES SUB-TREASURY.

“In 1700 a house and lot on the southeast corner of Wall and Broad streets, 16 x 30, sold for £163. In 1706 a house and lot on the north of Wall street, 25 x 116, sold for £116. In 1737 a house and lot on the north of Wall street, 62 x 102, sold for £110. In 1793, the dwelling and lot of General Alexander Hamilton, on the south of Wall street, 42 x 108, sold for £2400. In 1794 a house and lot, 44 x 51, sold for £2510.” At present the ground included in these sites is held at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The street fairly began its present career in the days of Jacob Little, “the great bear of Wall street.” He opened an office here in 1822, and by dint of such labor as few men are capable of performing, placed himself at the head of American operators. His credit was good for any amount, and his integrity was unimpeachable. He could sway the market as he pleased, and his contracts were met with a punctuality and fidelity which made “his word as good as his bond.” Efforts were made to ruin him, but his genius and far-sightedness enabled him to defeat all his enemies with their own weapons. His gains were enormous, and so were his losses. The civil war brought upon him disasters which he could not surmount, and he died poor in the early part of 1861, leaving behind him one of the names of which New York is proud.

At the corner of Nassau street, and looking down into Broad street, is the Sub-Treasury of the United States, a handsome white marble edifice. It is built in the Doric style of architecture, and its massive flight of steps and imposing portico give to it a striking appearance. It is constructed in the most substantial manner, and has a rear entrance on Pine street. The interior is handsomely arranged, and tasteful but secure iron gratings protect the employees from surprise and robbery. The vaults are burglar proof. This is the principal depository of the Federal Government, and millions of dollars are always in its vaults. The building was erected for, and was used for some years as, a Custom House.

From the steps of the Treasury one may enjoy a fine view of the entire street, and of Broad street also. About the hour of noon the scene is busy and exciting. The roadway in Wall street is full of struggling vehicles, and long rows of cabs stand in waiting in Broad street for the busy operators within the Exchanges. The side walks are crowded with an eager, hurrying throng. The steps and street around the Stock Exchange, in Broad street, are black with men who are shouting, pushing, and struggling in the effort to turn the transactions of the day to their advantage. Overhead is an intricate maze of telegraph wires, along which flow the quick and feverish pulsations of the great financial heart of the country. The sunlight falls brightly and cheerily over it all, and at intervals the clear, sweet chimes of old Trinity come floating down the street high above the noise and strife below them.

Diagonally opposite the Treasury, and at the corner of William street, is the Custom House, which occupies the irregular square bounded by Wall street, Exchange Place, William street, and Hanover street. It is one of the finest and best arranged edifices in the city.

Just below the Custom House is the handsome marble building of Brown Brothers, one of the model houses of New York, as regards both the firm and the edifice. The Messrs. Brown are regarded as the most reliable and accomplished operators in the street. Across the way, in a dingy granite building, is the office of August Belmont & Co., the American agents of the Rothschilds, and bankers on their own account. Jay Cooke & Co. occupy the fine marble building at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, opposite the Treasury, and there conduct the New York branch of their enormous business. Fisk & Hatch, the financial agents of the great Pacific Railway, are a few steps higher up Nassau street. Henry Clews & Co. are in the building occupied by the United States Assay Office. Other firms, of more or less eminence, fill the street. Some have fine, showy offices, others operate in dark, dingy holes.

II. THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

The Stock Exchange is located on the west side of Broad street, just out of Wall street. It is a fine white marble edifice, with a portico of iron, painted flashily in black and gold. It extends back to New street, with an entrance on that street. There is also an entrance on Wall street. It contains the “New York Stock Exchange,” “The Mining Board,” and the “Government Board.”

During the spring and summer of 1871 the internal arrangements of the building were very much improved. The refitting cost the brokers $60,000, but they now have the handsomest establishment of its kind in the world.

The main entrance is on Broad street, and from this the visitor passes into a room, the larger portion of which is separated from the Broad street end by an iron railing. This is “The Long Room,” and during the day it is almost always filled with a noisy and not over-nice crowd. It is the scene of the irregular sales of stocks. Any one who can raise $50 can purchase a season ticket to this hall, and once admitted can sell and purchase stocks without being a member of the Regular Board. This arrangement has nearly put an end to the sales of stocks on the side walks, and has given a tinge of respectability to the class known as “Curb-stone Brokers.” A dozen or more different stocks may be sold here at once, and the sale may be continued as long as the seller sees fit. There is no regular organization of the brokers operating here, though these men control the bulk of the sales made in the street. They are noisy and seem half demented in their frantic efforts to make sales.

The “Stock Exchange” occupies the main hall, which is on the floor above the Long Room. This hall is one of the most beautiful apartments in the city. It is seventy-four feet long, fifty-four feet wide, and fifty-two feet four inches high. Its lofty ceiling is arched and decorated with bright red and buff penciling upon a sky blue ground, while the walls are relieved by broad square pilasters, painted in brilliant bronze, with tall windows and arched tops rising between, and other spaces between the columns covered with drapery in more subdued colors. Up to a few feet from the floor the painting is in a dark-hued bronze. The coloring is in the Moorish style throughout, and the effect of the whole is very fine. At the north end is the platform for the desks of the Vice-President and Secretary, and on each side of this is a black board for recording the quotations of the session. On the same platform is the desk and instrument of the stock telegraph operator. At the south end of the hall is a light gallery capable of holding 200 persons, for the use of visitors. In connection with the hall are several committee, cloak and ante-rooms. In the centre of the ceiling is a huge ventilator, beneath which is suspended the lighting apparatus, containing 100 burners. A chamber five feet in depth underlies the hall and the adjoining lobby, and in it are laid pipes for conducting warm air.

THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

At the base of the walls is an open iron grating covering the apertures of a shaft leading from the engine-room. Through this shaft warm air is forced into the hall in winter, and cool air in summer, thus securing perfect ventilation.

The Stock Exchange Board is an incorporated company, and is the only lawful association in the city for the transaction of business connected with stocks. It consists of 1050 members, but the control of its affairs is vested in a council of forty members, together with the President, Secretary and Treasurer in their unofficial capacity. The admission fee is $5000, and a seat in the Board becomes the absolute personal property of the broker, who can sell or otherwise dispose of it as he would of his watch or his coat. Candidates are admitted by ballot and with great care, the object being to secure the exclusion of all but men of known integrity, for the Board requires the most scrupulous good faith in the transactions of all its members. Four black balls will prevent the admission of a candidate whether he wishes to enter by purchase or otherwise. Candidates must submit to a close scrutiny of their previous lives, and must show a clear record.

There are two daily sessions of the Board, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The securities offered at these meetings are divided into two classes, the Regular and the Free List. No stock or bond can be dealt in until it has been rigidly examined by a committee, and found to be a bon fide security.

At half-past ten o’clock in the morning, the Morning Board is called to order by the First Vice-President. The Regular List, which is made up in advance of the meeting, must always be called, and called first. The Free List may be called or not at the option of the Board. The Regular List consists of 1st. Miscellaneous Stocks. 2d. Railroad Stocks. 3d. State Bonds. 4th. City Stocks. 5th. Railroad Bonds.

The session opens with the reading of the minutes of the previous day. Then comes the call of the Regular List. The call of Miscellaneous Stocks awakens but little excitement. Bids follow quickly upon the announcement of the stocks, and the transactions, as they are announced by the cries of the brokers are repeated by the Vice-President to the Assistant Secretary, who records them in the journal, and they are also recorded by a clerk on a black board in full view of the members. Where there is a doubt respecting a sale or purchase the Vice-President decides, and his decision is final, unless reversed by the votes of a majority of the members present.

THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE BOARD IN SESSION.

The call of railroad securities brings the brokers to their feet, and the real business of the day begins. Offers and bids, shouted in deep bass, high treble, or shrill falsetto, resound through the hall, and in a few minutes the jovial-looking brokers seem to be on the verge of madness. How they yell and shout, and stamp, and gesticulate. The roar and confusion are bewildering to a stranger, but the keen, practised ears of the Vice-President at once recognize the various transactions, and down they go in the Secretary’s book, and on the black board, while the solemn-vizaged telegraph operator sends them clicking into every broker’s office in the city. High over all rings the voice of Peter, the keeper of the gate, calling out members for whom telegrams or visitors have arrived.

The other stocks awaken more or less excitement, and when the Regular List is completed, the Free List is in order, and the Vice-President calls such stocks as the members express a desire to deal in. Then, unless there is a wish to call up some stock hastily passed over on the call of the Regular List, the session closes.

At one o’clock, the afternoon session is held, and the routine of the morning is gone over again. The transactions of both sessions are carefully recorded in the Secretary’s books.

The Vice-President receives a salary of $7000 per annum for his services, which are not light. The Secretary and Assistant Secretary, and Roll-keeper do the rest of the work of the Board. The last named keeps a record of the fines, which yield an exceedingly large revenue to the Board. The brokers are not the most dignified of mortals in their meetings, but are very much given to disorderly conduct and practical jokes. The annual dues of the Exchange are but fifty dollars, but the average broker pays at least ten times as much in fines. To interrupt the presiding officer during a call of the stocks subjects the offender to a fine of not less than twenty-five cents for each offence; to smoke a cigar within the Exchange costs five dollars; to be absent from special meetings is to incur a fine of not more than five dollars; to stand on a table or chair is punishable with a fine of one dollar; to throw a paper dart or ball at a member during the session of the Board costs ten dollars; and other offences may be punished with fines assessed by the Vice-President at any sum between twenty-five cents and five dollars.

Each day a list of stocks to be put in the market is made out, and no others can be sold during the sessions. The Board can refuse to offer any particular stock for sale, and a guarantee is required of the party making the sale. The members of the Board are men of character, and their transactions are fair and open. They are required to fulfil all contracts in good faith, however great the loss to themselves, on pain of expulsion from the Board, and it is very rare that an expelled member can be reinstated.

III. THE GOVERNMENT BOARD.

The room used by the Government Board, in which all transactions in the bonds and securities of the United States take place, is located on the second floor of the Exchange building. It is handsomely frescoed and furnished in green rep. The basement beneath this room is an immense vault, containing 618 safes, arranged in three tiers, and guarded by four policemen detailed for that purpose. These safes are a foot and a half square, and are rented by the brokers who deposit in them overnight small tin boxes containing their bonds and other securities. It is estimated that the value of the securities nightly deposited here is over two hundred millions of dollars.

The seats of the brokers in the Government Room are arranged in tiers, rising one above the other, from the floor to the wall. The officers occupy a platform at the head of the chamber. The order of business is very much like that of the Stock Board.

“The Vice-President begins:

“‘6s ’81 registered—’81 coupon. 5.20s ’62 registered—coupon. What’s bid?’

“Here and there from flanking chairs come sputtering bids or offers:

“‘Ten thousand at 3/8, buyer 3.’

“‘I’ll give an 1/8, seller 3, for the lot.’

“‘¼, buyer 30, for fifty thousand.’

“‘¼, regular, for any part of five thousand.’

“First Voice. ‘Sold,—five hundred.’

“The presiding officer repeats the sale and terms, the secretary makes his registry, and a new bond is started.

“Sometimes when 5.20s are called, there is at first only one voice which rings the changes on ‘I’ll give 115. I’ll give ’15 for a thousand,—’15 for a thousand.’ Presently, however, before any response follows the offer, a member in a distant corner, either carelessly or maliciously, shouts out, ‘I’ll give ’14 for a thousand,—’14 for a thousand.’

“The Vice-President plies his hammer: ‘Fine Irving—fine Irving fifty cents.’ The Roll keeper proceeds to make his little note of it, and Irving, who has violated the rule, founded on common sense, which forbids a member from making a bid below or an offer above the one which has the floor immediately subsides amid the laughter of his neighbors.

“Occasionally an interruption of a grosser character occurs, a member leaping from his seat on some slight provocation, and striking off the hat of the man who has offended. Fine Harrison, fine Harrison again, fine, fine him again,—fine Harrison,’ cries the Vice-President, repeating the word without cessation until the broker’s wrath has been appeased, and he returns to his chair with the disagreeable reflection that a heavy score is against him for the semi-annual settlement-day. Every repetition of that fatal monosyllable was a fresh mark of fifty cents or a dollar against his name. Generally, however, the Government brokers are more orderly than their neighbors in the Regular Board. Indeed, the whole proceedings are more decorous and respectful, the bidding, half the time, being carried on in a low conversational tone. At second call there is a brief excitement, but when ‘things are dull’ throughout the street, this room peculiarly reflects the external influences.

“Very different it is, however, on days when some special cause provokes great fluctuations. Then the members spring from their seats, arms, hands, excitable faces, rapid vociferations, all come in play, and the element of pantomime performs its part in assisting the human voice as naturally as among the Italians of Syracuse. To the uninitiated the biddings here are as unintelligible as elsewhere, sounding to ordinary ears like the gibberish of Victor Hugo’s Compachinos. But the comparative quietude of this Board renders it easier to follow the course of the market, to detect the shades of difference in the running offers, and generally to get a clearer conception of this part of the machinery of stock brokerage.”

In former times brokers were subjected to great expense in keeping a host of runners and messengers to bring them news of the transactions at the Exchanges. The introduction of the Stock Telegraph has made a great and beneficial change in this respect. In every broker’s office, and in the principal hotels and restaurants of the city, there is an automatic recording instrument connected by telegraphic wires with an instrument in the Stock and Gold Exchanges. The operator in these exchanges indicates the quotations of stocks and gold on his own instrument, and these quotations are repeated by the instruments in the offices throughout the city. These office instruments print the quotations in plain Roman letters and figures on a ribbon of paper, so that any one can read and understand them. Thus one man does the work formerly required of several hundred, and no time is lost in conveying the information. The broker in his office is informed of the transactions at the Exchange at the very instant they are made.

IV. THE GOLD EXCHANGE.

You pass from Broad street into the basement of a brown stone building just below the Stock Exchange, and find yourself in a long, dimly-lighted passage way, which leads into a small courtyard. Before you is a steep stairway leading to a narrow and dirty entry. At the end of this entry is a gloomy looking door. Pass through it, and you are in the famous Gold Exchange.

This is a showy apartment in the style of an amphitheatre, with an ugly fountain in the centre of the floor. An iron railing encloses the fountain. Against the New street end is the platform occupied by the President and Secretary, and on the right of this is the telegraph office. There are two galleries connected with the room, one for the use of visitors provided with tickets, and the other free to all comers. There is an indicator on the outer wall of the building on New street, from which the price of gold is announced to the crowd without. It is a common habit with sporting men of the lower class to frequent New street and bet on the indicator.

There are but few benches in the Gold Room. The members of the Board are too nervous and excitable to sit still, and seats would soon be broken to pieces in their wild rushing up and down the floor.

The business of the day begins about ten o’clock. The rap of the President’s gavel opens the session, and as there is but one thing dealt in—gold—the bids follow the sound of the mallet. The noise and confusion are greater here than in the Stock Board or the Long Room, and it seems impossible to a stranger that the President should be able to follow the various transactions. When the excitement is at its height, the scene resembles “pandemonium broken loose.” The members rush wildly about, without any apparent aim. They stamp, yell, shake their arms, heads, and bodies violently, and almost trample each other to death in their frenzied struggles. Men who in private life excite the admiration of their friends by the repose and dignity of their manner, here join in the furious whirl, and seem more like maniacs than sensible human beings. And yet every yell, every gesture, is fraught with the most momentous consequences. These seeming maniacs have a method in their madness, and are changing at every breath the value of the currency upon which the whole business of the country rests. When the fluctuations are very great, fortunes are made and lost here every hour.

Connected with the business of the Gold Room are the Gold Exchange Bank and the Clearing House. The method of settlement with these institutions, which are indispensable where gold passes so rapidly from hand to hand in the Exchange, is as follows: “On or before half past twelve o’clock, a statement of all the purchases or sales made by each broker on the preceding day must be rendered to the bank. If the gold bought be in excess of that sold, a check for the difference must accompany the statement. If deposits in gold or currency are not kept in the bank, the coin must be delivered at every deficiency. The Board adjourns at twelve, in order to enable tardy dealers to complete their accounts. Provided all contracts are honored, the bank must settle by two P.M. In case of default, the amount in abeyance is debited or credited to the broker who suffers by the failure.”

The Clearing House Association was created in 1853, and represents the sum of the financial business of the city. “The Association is located in the third story of the building of the Bank of New York. The centre of the room is occupied by a bank counter, extending on four sides, with a passage inside and out. Fifty-nine desks are placed on the counter for the use of the fifty-nine banks represented in the Association. Each desk bears the name of the bank to which it belongs. Fitted up in each desk are fifty-nine pigeon holes for the checks of the various banks. Two clerks represent each bank. One remains at the desk and receives all the checks on his bank. He signs the name of the bank to the sheet which each outside clerk holds in his hand. These outside clerks go from desk to desk and leave the checks received the day before, with the banks on which they are drawn. Banks do not begin public business till ten; but clerks have to be on hand at eight, when all checks are assorted and arranged for delivery at the Clearing House.

“At ten minutes before ten the bank messengers begin to assemble and take their places. As they enter they leave with the messenger a slip containing an exact account of the bank they represent. These statements are put on a sheet prepared for that purpose, and must conform precisely to the checks received inside, before the Clearing House closes its duties. If there is any error or discrepancy, the bank is immediately notified by telegraph, and the clerks kept until the matter is satisfactorily adjusted. At ten, promptly, business begins. Clerks come rushing in with small trunks, tin boxes, or with bundles in their arms, and take their seats at the desks. On the side of the room entered only from the manager’s office is a desk, not unlike a pulpit. Precisely at ten the bell rings, the manager steps into his box, brings down his gavel, and the work of the day begins. Quiet prevails. No loud talking is allowed, and no confusion. A bank late is fined two dollars; a party violating the rules, or guilty of insubordination, is fined two dollars and reported to the hank. On repetition, he is expelled the Clearing House. The daily transactions of the Clearing House varies from ninety-eight to one hundred millions. The system is so nicely balanced that three millions daily settle the difference. Each bank indebted to the Clearing House must send in its check before half after one. Creditors get the Clearing House check at the same hour. Daily business is squared and all accounts closed at half after three. Every bank in the city is connected with the Clearing House by telegraph. The morning work of clearing one hundred millions, occupies ten minutes. Long before the clerks can reach the bank, its officers are acquainted with the exact state of their account, and know what loans to grant or refuse. Through the Clearing House each bank is connected with every other in the city. If a doubtful check is presented, if paper to be negotiated is not exactly clear, while the party offering the paper or check is entertained by some member of the bank, the telegraph is making minute inquiries about his financial standing. Before the conference closes, the bank knows the exact facts of the case.”

V. CURB-STONE BROKERS.

The members of the Stock and Gold Exchange, as has been stated, are men of character. Their transactions are governed by certain fixed rules, and they are required, on pain of expulsion from the Exchange, to observe the strictest good faith in their dealings with each other and with their customers. If the operations of the street were entirely confined to them, business in Wall street might be regarded as in safe hands. But there is another class, even more numerous and quite as well skilled in the ways of the street, who transact a vast part of its business. They are not members of the Exchange, and in former times used to assemble around its doors in Broad and New streets, and carry on their operations on the sidewalk. Hence their designation, “Curb-stone brokers.” They no longer assemble on the pavement, for the Exchange has thrown open to them its Long Room. Any one who can pay $50 a year for a ticket of admission, and who has brains and nerve enough to enter upon the struggle, can sell or buy in the Long Room. This is better than standing in the street, exposed to the weather, and moreover gives a certain respectability to the “operator,” although he may carry his sole capital in his head, and his office in his breeches-pocket.

No rules or regulations apply to the Long Room. The honest man and the rogue mingle together here, and the broker must be sure of his man. Many of the members of the Exchange buy and sell here, either in person or through their representatives, and many good men who are unable to enter the Exchange conduct their business here. Others again prefer the freedom and the wider field of the Long Room. Still, there are many sharpers here, who would fleece a victim out of his last cent.

The daily transactions of the Long Room are said to average about $70,000,000, or ten times the business done in the Regular Board. Fortune is much more uncertain here than in the room up stairs. Men buy and sell here with the recklessness of gamblers. The noise and excitement are almost as great as in the Gold Room. The absence of the fixed laws of the Regular Boards puts every one on his own resources, and men are compelled to use all their ingenuity, all their determination to guard against a surprise or unfair dealing. It is every one for himself here. A dozen or more small or new operators are ruined and swept away daily, and in times of great financial excitement the Long Room shakes the foundations of even some of the strongest houses in the street.

VI. THE BUSINESS OF THE STREET.

It is a common habit to speak of Wall street as the financial centre of the Republic; but only those who are acquainted with its transactions can know how true this is. Regarding Wall street and New York as synonymous terms, we find that the street is not only a great power in this country, but that it is one of the great controlling powers of the financial world. Indeed, if the prosperity of the country is as marked in the future as it has been in the past, there is good reason to believe that Wall street will control the whole world of finance. Its geographical location is in its favor. By noon the New York broker has full information of the same day’s transactions in London, Frankfort, and Paris, and can shape his course in accordance with this knowledge, while the European broker cannot profit by his knowledge of matters in New York until the next day.

The Stock Exchange of New York numbers over 1000 members, and its aggregate wealth is greater than that of any similar association in the world. The par value of the annual sales made at the regular Boards and “over the counter” is estimated at over $22,000,000,000 annually. The par value of the authorized stocks, bonds, and Governments dealt in by the regular Boards is more than $3,000,000,000, and this vast sum is turned over and over many times during the year. The aggregate of the brokers’ commissions on the sales and purchases made by them is estimated by competent authority at $43,750,000 annually. The bulk of this enormous business is in the hands of about 400 houses.

“Out of all the incorporated banks in the United States, there are thirty situated in Wall street and its neighborhood, whose office is not unlike that of the heart in the economy of animal life. Although less than half the full number of banks in the metropolis, these thirty have two-thirds of the capital, and quite two-thirds of the circulation. By a provision of statutory law, all outside National banks, numbering some 1600, are allowed to keep one-half, and many three-fifths, of their reserve balances in New York. In this way our great financial centre is rapidly acquiring the function of a National clearing-house. These temporary deposits bear a small interest, and are subject to be called for at a day’s notice. They can only be used, therefore, by the employing banks on the same conditions. The stock market supplies these conditions. Bonds and shares bought to-day and sold to-morrow, endowed with all the properties of swift conversion, and held by men whose training has been one of incessant grappling with the new and unexpected, are the only class of property upon which money can safely be borrowed without a protection against sudden demands. On these securities, therefore, the down-town banks make call loans. The name implies the nature. The money which the thirty receive from without, together with their own reserves, is lent freely to stock-brokers, with the simple provision that it must be returned immediately upon notice, if financial exigencies require it. This vast volume of what may well be styled fluid wealth is difficult of estimate in figures. The published statements of loans made by city banks make no distinction between discounts of commercial paper and what is advanced on securities. In sum total, the thirty banks lend weekly about $165,000,000. Indeed, including all New York banks, the average is nearly $255,000,000. During the week ending September 18, 1868, these banks lent $266,496,024. The real meaning of these last figures will be better understood when it is known that they exceed the entire average loans and discounts of all the national banks of New England and New York State, with the exception, of course, of the city itself. Or, to take a more sweeping view, they surpass the total weekly loans of national banks in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Delaware, and New Jersey. Nigh $180,000,000 of the amount cited above were advanced by the down-town banks. What proportion of this was lent on stocks? Probably much over one-third. As many of the other banks also make call loans, we may, perhaps, estimate that from $70,000,000 to $100,000,000 are furnished daily to the brokers and operators of New York.

THE PARK BANK, BROADWAY.

“This, however, is but one element in the lending force of the city. There are five Trust Companies, with capitals amounting in the aggregate to $5,500,000, which lend, at times, $60,000,000 a week. There are also a large number of private banking houses, of which Jay Cooke & Co. may be selected as representatives, that daily loan vast sums of money on security. The foreign houses alone, which, like Belmont & Co., Brown Brothers, Drexel, Winthrop & Co., operate in Wall street, employ not much less than $200,000,000 of capital.”

In the good old days gone by Wall street did business on principles very different from those which prevail there now. Then there was a holy horror in all hearts of speculation. Irresponsible men might indulge in it, and so incur the censure of the more respectable, but established houses confined themselves to a legitimate and regular business. They bought and sold on commission, and were satisfied with their earnings. Even now, indeed, the best houses profess to do simply a commission business, leaving the risk to the customer, but those who know the hidden ways of the street hint that there is not a house in it but has its secrets of large or small operations undertaken on account of the firm. The practice of buying and selling on commission is unquestionably the safest, but the mania for wealth leads many clear, cool-headed men into the feverish whirl of speculation, and keeps them there until they have realized their wildest hopes, or are ruined.

It has been remarked that the men who do business in Wall street have a prematurely old look, and that they die at a comparatively early age. This is not strange. They live too fast. Their bodies and brains are taxed too severely to last long. They pass their days in a state of great excitement. Every little fluctuation of the market elates or depresses them to an extent greater than they think. At night they are either planning the next day’s campaign, or are hard at work at the hotels. On Sundays their minds are still on their business, and some are laboring in their offices, screened from public observation. Body and mind are worked too hard, and are given no rest.

The chief cause of this intense strain is the uncertainty attending the operations of Wall street. The chances there are not dependent upon the skill or the exertions of the operator. Some powerful clique may almost destroy the securities upon which he relies for success, or may make him wealthy by suddenly running up their value; so that no man who does not confine himself to a strictly legitimate or commission business—and but few do so—can say one week whether he will be a millionaire or a beggar the next. The chances are in favor of the latter result. Nine out of ten who speculate in gold or stocks, lose, especially persons unaccustomed to such operations. Like all gamblers, they are undismayed by their losses, and venture a second time, and a third, and so on. The fascination of stock gambling is equal to that of card gambling, and holds its victims with an iron hand. The only safe rule for those who wish to grow rich is to keep out of Wall street. While one man makes a fortune by a sudden rise in stocks or gold, hundreds lose by an equally sudden fall in the same commodities. Even old and established firms sometimes give way with a crash under these sudden changes.

The legitimate operations of the street and the speculative ventures are becoming more and more concentrated every year in the hands of a few operators and capitalists. These move the market as they please, and fill their coffers, and sweep away younger or weaker men with a remorseless hand. It is useless to oppose them. They are masters of the field in every respect, and when they combine for a common object, their resources are inexhaustible and their power beyond computation. A dozen, or even half a dozen of the great capitalists could ruin the whole street were they so disposed, and once they came near doing so. This is the secret of the cordial hatred that is felt by the majority of Wall street men for Vanderbilt, Drew, and other great operators. They know and dread the power of these men, and would readily combine to destroy them singly.

The mania for stock gambling which now sways such masses of people, may be said to date from the war and the petroleum discoveries. Since then it has rolled over the country in a vast flood. The telegraph is kept busy all day and all night in sending orders for speculations from people in other States and cities to New York brokers. Everybody who can raise the funds, wishes to try his or her hand at a venture in stocks. Merchants, clergymen, women, professional men, clerks, come here to tempt fortune. Many win; more lose.

Fortunes are made quicker and lost more easily in New York than in any place in the world. A sudden rise in stocks, or a lucky venture of some other kind, often places a comparatively poor man in possession of great wealth. Watch the carriages as they whirl through Fifth avenue, going and returning from the park. They are as elegant and sumptuous as wealth can make them. The owners, lying back amongst the soft cushions, are clad in the height of fashion. By their dresses they might be princes and princesses. This much is due to art. Now mark the coarse, rough features, the ill-bred stare, the haughty rudeness which they endeavor to palm off for dignity. Do you see any difference between them and the footman in livery on the carriage-box? Both master and man belong to the same class—only one is wealthy and the other is not. But that footman may take the place of the master in a couple of years, or in less time. Such changes may seem remarkable, but they are very common in New York.

See that gentleman driving that splendid pair of sorrels. He is a fine specimen of mere animal beauty. How well he drives. The ease and carelessness with which he manages his splendid steeds, excites the admiration of every one on the road. He is used to it. Five years ago he was the driver of a public hack. He amassed a small sum of money, and being naturally a sharp, shrewd man, went into Wall street, and joined the “Curb-stone Brokers.” His transactions were not always open to a rigid scrutiny, but they were profitable to him. He invested in oil stocks, and with his usual good luck made a fortune. Now he operates through his broker. His transactions are heavy, his speculations bold and daring, but he is usually successful. He lives in great splendor in one of the finest mansions in the city, and his carriages and horses are superb. His wife and daughters are completely carried away by their good fortune, and look with disdain upon all who are not their equals or superiors in wealth. They are vulgar and ill-bred, but they are wealthy, and society worships them. There will come a change some day. The husband and father will venture once too often in his speculations, and his magnificent fortune will go with a crash, and the family will return to their former state, or perhaps sink lower, for there are very few men who have the moral courage to try to rise again after such a fall, and this man is not one of them.

In watching the crowd on Broadway, one will frequently see, in some shabbily dressed individual, who, with his hat drawn down close over his eyes, is evidently shrinking from the possibility of being recognized, the man who but a few weeks ago was one of the wealthiest in the city. Then he was surrounded with splendor. Now he hardly knows where to get bread for his family. Then he lived in an elegant mansion. Now one or two rooms on the upper floor of some tenement house constitute his habitation. He shrinks from meeting his old friends, well knowing that not one of them will recognize him, except to insult him with a scornful stare. Families are constantly disappearing from the social circles in which they have shone for a greater or less time. They vanish almost in an instant, and are never seen again. You may meet them at some brilliant ball in the evening. Pass their residence the next day, and you will see a bill announcing the early sale of the mansion and furniture. The worldly effects of the family are all in the hands of the creditors of the “head,” and the family themselves are either in a more modest home in the country, or in a tenement house. You can scarcely walk twenty blocks on Fifth avenue, without seeing one of these bills, telling its mournful story of fallen greatness.

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 new to him, and is so rapid that he has no time 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 a transaction 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 in their mad course, hoping to make up their losses by one lucky speculation, and at length utter ruin rouses them from their dreams.

Not only do men squander their own money in this way, but they risk and often lose the funds of others committed to their charge. Bank officers, having the use of the deposits in their institutions, take them for speculation, intending of course to return them. Sometimes they are successful, and are able to replace the money in the bank, so that no one hears of their dishonesty. Again, and most commonly, they fail, and they are ruined. Guardians thus misappropriate the funds of their wards. Even the funds of churches are thus used by their trustees. The amount of speculation engaged in by clergymen with their own money would astonish a novice. Some prominent divines in the city are well known in Wall street. Their brokers keep their secrets, but the habituÉs of the street are adepts at putting this and that together, and these reverend gentlemen, some of whom preach eloquently against the sins of speculation and gambling, become known as regular customers. The street is full of gossip concerning them, and if the stories told of them be true, some of them have made large fortunes in this way, while others have literally “gone to the bad.”

It is not necessary that a person speculating in stocks should be master of the entire value of the stocks. If he be known to the broker operating for him as a responsible person, he may employ only ten per cent., or some other proportion, of the stock to be dealt in. By depositing $1000 with his broker, he can speculate to the extent of $10,000. This per centage is called a margin, and the deposit is designed to protect the broker from loss in case the stock should fall in value. As the stock depreciates, the customer must either sell out and bear the loss which is inevitable, or he must increase his margin to an extent sufficient to protect his broker. If he fails to increase his margin, the broker sells the stock and uses the money to save himself.

VIII. THE WAYS OF THE STREET.

Like Brette Harte’s Heathen Chinee,

“For ways that are dark
And tricks that are vain,
Wall Street is peculiar.”

It takes a clear, cool head, a large amount of brains, and unaltering nerve, to thread one’s way through the intricacies of the business of finance as carried on there. It would be interesting to know how many come out of the ordeal untouched by the taint of corruption. Members of the Exchanges are held by a rigid code of laws, but in questions of morality Wall street has a code of its own. Expediency is a prominent consideration in the dealings of the street, and men have come to regard as honest and correct almost anything short of a regular breach of contract. They do not spare their own flesh and blood. Friendships are sacrificed, the ties of kinship are disregarded, if they stand in the way of some bold operation. Every thing must give way to the desire for gain. The great operators plunder and destroy their lesser rivals without a feeling of remorse, and by combinations which they know cannot be resisted blast the prospects and ruin the lives of scores whose greatest fault is an inability to oppose them successfully. Tricks so mean and contemptible that their perpetrator would not be tolerated in social life, are resorted to, and if successful are applauded as evidences of smartness. Every man’s hand is against his neighbor. Clerks are bribed to betray the secrets of their employers. The baser their treachery, the larger their reward. We do not propose, however, to discuss the morality of Wall street transactions, and so we drop the subject.

It is said by the gossips of the street that the great Railroad King, Commodore Vanderbilt, is not above using any means at hand to secure the success of his schemes. It is said that he once tried to use his son William in this way. He came to him one day, and advised him that he had better sell his Hudson River stock, as 110 was too high for it. William thanked him, and made inquiries in the market, and found that his father was buying quietly all he could lay his hands upon.

William determined to follow suit. Up jumped the stock to 137. It was a clear twenty-six per cent. in pocket.

When the operation was concluded, the Commodore rode round to the son’s office.

“Well, William, how much did you lose?”

“I went in at 110 on 10,000 shares. That ought to make me two hundred and sixty thousand dollars—”

“Very bad luck, William,” quoth the father, trying to look extremely troubled,—“very bad luck, this time.”

“But then I bought, and so made.”

“Hey? What sent you doing that, sir?”

“O, I heard that was your line, and so concluded that you meant long instead of short.”

“Ahem!” croaked Vanderbilt pÈre, as he buttoned up his fur overcoat, and stalked out of the open door. He has always had a high opinion of William since that event!

Some years ago Vanderbilt wanted to consolidate the Hudson River and Harlem Railroads, and when the scheme was presented before the Legislature of New York, secured a sufficient number of votes in that body to insure the passage of the bill authorizing the consolidation. Before the bill was called upon its final passage, however, he learned from a trustworthy source that the members of the Legislature who had promised to vote for the bill, were determined to vote against it, with the hope of ruining him. The stock of the Harlem road was then selling very high, in consequence of the expected consolidation. The defeat of the bill would, of course, cause it to fall immediately. The unprincipled legislators at once began a shrewd game. They sold Harlem right and left, to be delivered at a future day, and found plenty of purchasers, every one but those in the plot expecting the consolidation of the roads and a consequent advance in the value of the stock. They let their friends into the secret, and there was soon a great deal of “selling short” in this stock. Commodore Vanderbilt managed to acquaint himself with the whole plot; but he held his peace, and resolved upon revenge. He went into the market quietly, with all the funds he could raise, and bought every certificate of Harlem stock that he could find. These certificates he locked up in his safe. When the bill came before the Legislature on its final passage, it was defeated.

The conspirators were jubilant. They were sure that the defeat of the bill would bring “Harlem” down with a rush. To their astonishment, however, “Harlem” did not fall. It remained stationary the first day, and then to their dismay rose steadily. Those to whom they had sold demanded the delivery of the stock, but the speculators found it impossible to buy it. There was none in the market at any price. In many of these instances Vanderbilt was the real claimant, the brokers acting in the transactions being merely his agents. Being unable to deliver the stock, the conspirators were forced to settle the demands against them in money, and the result was that they were ruined. One of the shrewdest operators in New York lost over $200,000. He refused to pay, and his name was stricken from the list of stockholders. This brought him to his senses, and he made good his contracts. Vanderbilt made money enough out of this transaction to pay for all the stock he owned in the Harlem Road.

Daniel Drew is a great operator. His gains are immense, as are also his losses. He is not popular in the street, and the brokers are fond of abusing him. He has handled too many of them mercilessly to have many friends. They say that he does not hesitate to sacrifice a friend to gain his ends, and that he is utterly without sympathy for those who go down before his heavy blows.

Bogus stock companies appear from time to time in Wall street. An office is rented and fitted up in magnificent style, a flaring programme is issued, and seemingly substantial evidences of the stability and prosperity of the company are exhibited to inquirers. The stock offered is readily taken up by the eager to be rich crowd. A dividend, most hopefully large, is declared and paid, to stimulate investments, and then, when the market has been drained dry, the bubble bursts, the directors disappear, the office is closed, and the shareholders lose their money.

On fine afternoons visitors to the Park do not fail to notice a handsome equipage driven by a stylish young man, with rosy cheeks and light curly hair. His face is the perfect picture of happy innocence. He is very wealthy, and owns a great deal of real estate in the city. The manner in which he made his money will show how other persons enrich themselves.

A few years ago, he, in company with several others, organized a scheme for working certain gold mines said to be located in a distant territory. A company was made up, the country was flooded with flaming descriptions of the valuable mine, and stock was issued which sold readily. The bonds were soon taken up, and in a month or two the so-called company commenced paying handsome dividends. A number of gold bars, bearing the stamp of the mint, were on exhibition in the company’s office, and were triumphantly exhibited as amongst the first yields of the valuable mine. For several months the dividends were paid regularly, and the company’s stock rose to a splendid premium. It could hardly be bought at any price. No one doubted for an instant the genuineness of the affair, and the lucky company was the envy of all Wall street.

In a few months, all the stock being disposed of, the company ceased paying dividends. This excited the suspicion of some of the shrewdest holders of the stock, and the affair was investigated. It was found that the wonderful mine had no real existence. The gold bars were simply gold coins melted into that form at the Mint, and stamped by the Government as so much bullion. The dividends had been paid out of money advanced by the company, who were simply half a dozen unprincipled sharpers. The stockholders were ruined, but the company made a profit of a clear half million of dollars out of the infamous transaction. Legal proceedings are expensive and tedious when instituted against such parties, and the stockholders, rather than increase their losses by the outlay necessary for a lawsuit, suffered the swindlers to go unmolested.

A certain stock broker, anxious to increase his wealth, purchased twenty acres of land a few years ago in one of the Western States, and commenced boring for oil. After a few weeks spent in this work, he discovered to his dismay that there was not the slightest trace of oil on his land. He kept his own counsel, however, and paid the workmen to hold their tongues. About the same time it became rumored throughout New York that he had struck oil. He at once organized a company, and had a committee appointed to go West and examine the well. In a few weeks the committee returned in high glee, and reported that the well contained oil of the very best quality, and only needed capital and improved machinery to develop its capacity. In support of this assertion, they brought home numerous bottles containing specimens of the oil. This report settled the matter in Wall street, and the stock issued by the company was all sold at a handsome premium. When the sales ceased, it was rumored that the well had ceased to flow. This was true, for there was no oil anywhere on the land. That in the well had been bought in Pennsylvania, and poured into the well by the agents of the owner, and the examining committee had been paid large sums for their favorable report. The owner of the well was enriched, as were his confederates of the bogus company, and the holders of the stock were swindled, many of them being ruined.

Said the New York Herald, at a period when speculation was rampant:

“Within the past few days we have seen the most gigantic swindling operations carried on in Wall street that have as yet disgraced our financial centre. A great railway, one of the two that connect the West with the Atlantic seaboard, has been tossed about like a football, its real stockholders have seen their property abused by men to whom they have entrusted its interests, and who, in the betrayal of that trust, have committed crimes which in parallel cases on a smaller scale would have deservedly sent them to Sing Sing. If these parties go unwhipped of justice, then are we doing injustice in confining criminals in our State prisons for smaller crimes.

“To such a disgusting degree of depravity do we see these stock operations carried, that members of the church of high standing offer, when ‘concerned,’ to betray their brother ‘pals,’ and, in their forgetfulness of the morality to which they sanctimoniously listen every Sunday, state that ‘all they care about is to look out for number one.’ A manager of a great corporation is requested to issue bonds of his company without authority, offering ‘to buy the bonds if you are caught, or buy the bonds with the understanding not to pay for them unless you are caught.’ This attempted fiscal operation, however, did not work, and resulted in a good proof of the old adage that it requires ‘a rogue to catch a rogue.’

“A railroad treasurer boldly states that he has without authority over-issued stock of the company to a large amount. He offers it to a broker for sale, with the understanding that all received over a fixed value is to go into his (the treasurer’s) pocket. From the fact that this man is not arrested for maladministration of the company’s property, we judge this to be a legitimate operation, and that this may hereafter serve as a model or standard of morals to all presidents, directors, treasurers and managers of railway and other great corporations.”

IX. BLACK FRIDAY.

In the month of September, 1869, one of the most gigantic attempts to run up the value of gold ever made was attempted by a powerful combination of Bulls, consisting of a set of unprincipled men whose only object was to make money. Their scheme came near attaining a success which would have broken the market utterly, have unsettled values of all kinds, and have precipitated upon the whole country a financial crisis of the most terrible proportions. Nothing but the interference of the Secretary of the Treasury at a critical moment averted this disaster. As it was, the losses were fearful. Men in Wall street were ruined by the score, and for several days the best houses in the street were uncertain as to their exact condition.

An account of this formidable transaction is interesting as revealing the method of conducting the great operations of the street.

SCENE IN THE GOLD ROOM—BLACK FRIDAY.

“On the 22d of September, 1869, gold stood at 137½ when Trinity bells rang out the hour of twelve. By two it was at 139. Before night its lowest quotation was 141. . . . An advance of three and a half per cent. in five hours. At the same time the Stock Market exhibited tokens of excessive febrility, New York Central dropping twenty-three per cent. and Harlem thirteen. Loans had become extremely difficult to negotiate. The most usurious prices for a twenty-four hours’ turn were freely paid. The storm was palpably reaching the proportions of a tempest.

“Nevertheless, the brokers on the Bear side strove manfully under their burden. The character and purposes of the clique were fully known. Whatever of mystery had heretofore enfolded them was now boldly thrown aside, and the men of Erie, with the sublime Fisk in the forefront of the assailing column, assured the shorts that they could not settle too quickly, since it remained with the ring, now holding calls for one hundred millions, either to kindly compromise at 150 or to carry the metal to 200 and nail it there. This threat was accompanied by consequences in which the mailed hand revealed itself under the silken glove. The movement had intertwisted itself deep into the affairs of every dealer in the street, and entangled in its meshes vast numbers of outside speculators. In borrowing or in margins the entire capital of the former had been nearly absorbed, while some five millions had been deposited by the latter with their brokers in answer to repeated calls. When Thursday morning rose, gold started at 141-5/8, and soon shot up to 144. Then the clique began to tighten the screws. The shorts received peremptory orders to increase their borrowing margins. At the same moment the terms of loans overnight were raised beyond the pitch of ordinary human endurance. Stories were insidiously circulated exciting suspicion of the integrity of the Administration, and strengthening the belief that the National Treasury would bring no help to the wounded Bears. Whispers of an impending lock-up of money were prevalent; and the fact, then shrewdly suspected, and now known, of certifications of checks to the amount of twenty-five millions by one bank alone on that day, lent color to the rumor. Many brokers lost courage, and settled instantly. The Gold Room shook with the conflict, and the battle prolonged itself into a midnight session at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The din of the tumult had penetrated to the upper chambers of journalism. Reporters were on the alert. The great dailies magnified the struggle, and the Associated Press spread intelligence of the excitement to remote sections. When Friday opened clear and calm, the pavement of Broad and New streets soon filled up with unwonted visitors. All the idle population of the city and its neighborhood crowded into the financial quarter to witness the throes of the tortured shorts. Blended with the merely curious were hundreds of outside speculators who had ventured their all in the great stake, and trembled in doubt of the honor of their dealers. Long before 9 A.M. these men, intensely interested in the day’s encounter, poured through the alley-way from Broad street, and between the narrow walls of New street, surging up around the doorways, and piling themselves densely and painfully within the cramped galleries of the Room itself. They had made good the fresh calls for margins up to 143, the closing figure of the night before. The paramount question now was, How would gold open? They had not many minutes to wait. Pressing up to the fountain, around which some fifty brokers had already congregated, a Bull operator with resonant voice bid 145 for twenty thousand. The shout startled the galleries. Their margins were once more in jeopardy. Would their brokers remain firm? It was a terrible moment. The Bears closed round the aggressors. Yells and shrieks filled the air. A confused and baffling whirl of sounds ensued, in which all sorts of fractional bids and offers mingled, till ’46 emerged from the chaos. The crowd within the arena increased rapidly in numbers. The clique agents became vociferous. Gold steadily pushed forward in its perilous upward movement from ’46 to ’47, thence to ’49, and, pausing for a brief twenty minutes, dashed on to 150½. It was now considerably past the hour of regular session. The President was in the chair. The Secretary’s pen was bounding over his registry book. The floor of the Gold Room was covered with 300 agitated dealers and operators, shouting, heaving in masses against and around the iron railing of the fountain, falling back upon the approaches of the committee-rooms and the outer entrance, guarded with rigorous care by sturdy door-keepers. Many of the principal brokers of the street were there,—Kimber, who had turned traitor to the ring; Colgate, the Baptist; Clews, a veteran government broker; one of the Marvins; James Brown; Albert Speyer, and dozens of others hardly less famous. Every individual of all that seething throng had a personal stake beyond, and, in natural human estimate, a thousand-fold more dear than that of any outside patron, no matter how deeply or ruinously that patron might be involved. At 11 of the dial gold was 150½; in six minutes it jumped to 155. Then the pent-up tiger spirit burst from control. The arena rocked as the Coliseum may have rocked when the gates of the wild beasts were thrown open, and with wails and shrieks the captives of the empire sprang to merciless encounter with the ravenous demons of the desert. The storm of voices lost human semblance. Clenched hands, livid faces, pallid foreheads on which beads of cold sweat told of the interior anguish, lurid, passion-fired eyes,—all the symptoms of a fever which at any moment might become frenzy were there. The shouts of golden millions upon millions hurtled in all ears. The labor of years was disappearing and reappearing in the wave line of advancing and receding prices. With fortunes melting away in a second, with five hundred millions of gold in process of sale or purchase, with the terror of yet higher prices, and the exultation which came and went with the whispers of fresh men entering from Broad street bearing confused rumors of the probable interposition of the Government, it is not hard to understand how reason faltered on its throne, and operators became reckless, buying or selling without thought of the morrow or consciousness of the present. Then came the terrific bid of Albert Speyer for any number of millions at 160. William Parks sold instantly two millions and a half in one lot. Yet the bids so far from yielding rose to 161, 162, 162½. For five minutes the Board reeled under the ferocity of the attack. Seconds became hours. The agony of Wellington awaiting Blucher was in the souls of the Bears. Then a broker, reported to be acting for Baring & Brothers, at London, sold five millions to the clique at the top price of the day. Hallgarten followed; and as the shorts were gathering courage, the certain news that the Secretary of the Treasury had come to the rescue swept through the chamber, gold fell from 160 to 140, and thence, with hardly the interval of one quotation, to 133. The end had come, and the exhausted operators streamed out of the stifling hall into the fresh air of the street. To them, however, came no peace. In some offices customers by dozens, whose margins were irrevocably burnt away in the smelting-furnace of the Gold Board, confronted their dealers with taunts and threats of violence for their treachery. In others the nucleus of mobs began to form, and, as the day wore off, Broad street had the aspect of a riot. Huge masses of men gathered before the doorway of Smith, Gould, Martin & Co., and Heath & Co. Fisk was assaulted, and his life threatened. Deputy-sheriffs and police officers appeared on the scene. In Brooklyn a company of troops were held in readiness to march upon Wall street.

“When night came, Broad street and its vicinity saw an unwonted sight. The silence and the darkness which ever rests over the lower city after seven of the evening, was broken by the blaze of gas-light from a hundred windows, and the footfall of clerks hurrying from a hasty repast back to their desks. Until long after Trinity bells pealed out the dawn of a new day, men bent over their books, scrutinized the Clearing-House statement for the morrow, took what thought was possible for the future. At the Gold Exchange Bank the weary accountants were making ineffective efforts to complete Thursday’s business. That toilful midnight, at the close of the last great passion-day of the bullion-worshippers, will be ever memorable for its anxieties and unsatisfying anguish.

BROAD STREET ON BLACK FRIDAY.

“Saturday brought no relief. The Gold Board met only to adjourn, as the Clearing-House had been incapable of the task of settling its accounts, complicated as they were by ever fresh failures. The small brokers had gone under by scores. The rumors of the impending suspension of some of the largest houses of the street gave fresh grounds for fear. The Stock Exchange was now the centre of attraction. If that yielded, all was lost. To sustain the market was vital. But whence was the saving power to came? All through yesterday shares had been falling headlong. New York Central careened to 148, and then recovered to 185¾. Hudson plunged from 173 to 145. Pittsburgh fell to 68. Northwest reached 62½. The shrinkage throughout all securities had been not less than thirty millions. Would the impulse downward continue? The throngs which filled the corridors and overhung the stairway from which one can look down upon the Long Room saw only mad tumult, heard only the roar of the biddings. For any certain knowledge they might have been in Alaska. But the financial public in the quiet of their offices, and nervously scrutinizing the prices reeled off from the automaton telegraph, saw that Vanderbilt was supporting the New York stocks, and that the weakness in other shares was not sufficient to shadow forth panic. It soon became known that the capitalists from Philadelphia, Boston, and the great Western cities had thrown themselves into the breach, and were earning fortunes for themselves as well as gratitude from the money-market, by the judicious daring of their purchases. The consciousness of this new element was quieting, but Wall street was still too feverish to be reposed by any ordinary anodyne. A run on the Tenth National Bank had commenced, and all day long a steady line of dealers filed up to the counter of the paying teller demanding their balances. The courage and the ability in withstanding the attack which were shown by the president and his associates deserve something more than praise. The Gold Exchange Bank witnessed a similar scene, angry brokers assaulting the clerks and threatening all possible things unless instantaneous settlements were made. The freedom with which the press had given details of the explosion had been extremely hurtful to the credit of many of the best houses. In a crisis like that of Black Friday the sluice-gates of passion open. Cloaked in the masquerade of genuine distrust, came forth whispers whose only origin was in ancient enmities, long-treasured spites, the soundless depths of unquenchable malignities. Firms of staunchest reputation felt the rapier-stroke of old angers. The knowledge that certain houses were large holders of particular stocks was the signal of attacks upon the shares. Despite of outside orders for vast amounts, these influences had their effect upon securities, and aided to tighten the loan market. One, one and a half, two, and even four per cent. were the compulsory terms on which money could alone be borrowed to carry stocks over Sunday.

“On Monday the 27th the Gold Board met, but only to be informed that the Clearing-House was not yet ready to complete the work of Friday. Important accounts had been kept back, and the dealings, swollen in sum-total to five hundred millions, were beyond the capacity of the clerical force of the Gold Bank to grapple with. A resolution was brought forward proposing the resumption of operations Ex-Clearing-House. The measure took the members by surprise, for a moment quivered between acceptance and rejection, and then was swiftly tabled. It was an immense Bear scheme, for no exchange can transact business where its dealers are under suspicion. All outstanding accounts require immediate fulfilment. Failure to make good deliveries would have insured the instant selling out of defaulters ‘under the rule.’ As the majority of brokers were inextricably involved in the late difficulty, the only consequence would have been to throw them into bankruptcy, thus bringing some $60,000,000 under the hammer. The market could not have borne up under such an avalanche. It was decided that the Room should be kept open for borrowings and loans, but that all dealings should be suspended. One result of this complication was that gold had no fixed value. It could be bought at one house for 133 and at other offices sold for 139. The Board thus proved its utility at the very juncture when least in favor.”