THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE.
BY HUBERT EARL.
A little gathering of men met under a buttonwood-tree in 1792, opposite what is now No. 60 Wall Street, and formed an association for the purpose of exchange and more ready current transaction of business. From this crude organization has grown the present New York Stock Exchange with its immense capital. Installed in a dignified edifice between Broad and New streets, with an entrance on Wall Street, its eleven hundred members transact business daily between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. No transactions are allowed before or after these hours, a heavy fine being the penalty for each offence, and such contracts not being recognized by the governing committee of the Exchange.
A membership in the Stock Exchange is worth a small fortune, for the seats have sold as high as $32,500, though at present they do not bring over $18,000. The brokers are both rich and poor, but adding the value of the memberships to an estimated average capital of $100,000 for each member, $150,000,000 is a conservative figure of the capital invested.
To the casual visitor who finds himself leaning over the handsome balcony rail looking down upon the immense floor of the Board-Room the howling gesticulating crowd of brokers appears like a mob of lunatics, and the occasional half-clipped calls that rise to his ears justify the comparison. Sign-posts are placed about the floor, bearing the names of the different stocks dealt in, and around these posts the brokers gather to buy and sell. When a particular stock is what is termed active, the brokers dealing in it surge madly around the post assigned to it, and amid deafening yells make their contracts. An ideal broker is one whose face never betrays any emotion, but remains perfectly passive, whether his stock transactions net him an enormous gain or lose him a fortune.
Many brokers act as agents for firms, but most firms have their own representative always on the floor. At times, though, to prevent the discovery of a big deal or an attempt to corner the market in some particular stock, it is necessary to call in the service of more brokers. A percentage is paid for such service, the minimum being $2 for every hundred shares that are valued at $100 each.
The members know each other, and frequently in the crowd a broker will stand with his slips in one hand, his eyes glued upon his memoranda, and with his other hand emphasizing his calls with lunging jerks, as he sends forth such yells as "One hundred at 84." Again and again he repeats his yell, and then changes it to 83¾ for a hundred. "Take 'em," comes the cry, to which he answers, "Sold"; and then jots down the transaction, never once looking to see who the buyer was, but relying upon the voice, which he knows. These transactions are invariably fulfilled to the letter, and there is no record during the existence of the Exchange of such a contract being disacknowledged. If this broker wants the transaction sent to his firm, he jots it down on a slip, and before he can turn around, one of the fifty-odd gray-uniformed messengers on the floor takes it, and runs off to the side of the room to that broker's telephone, and hands the memorandum to the operator, who telephones his firm.
Should a firm want to talk with their representative over the telephone, it is necessary to call him off the floor. As none but members are allowed on the floor, and no voice is strong enough to be heard calling above the fearful screech of bids and offers, a number system was devised for this purpose. Each broker has a number, and a rack on one of the walls has a corresponding number. A call is sent to the boy who works the annunciator to put up, say, 48. He pulls a knob, and instantly that number is exposed on the rack. Every now and then each broker glances at his rack, and when he sees his number he goes out either to the telephone or to the messenger or person who may want to see him. This silent call is discontinued after it has served its purpose.
There are a large number of telephones required, and a number of alleyways are partitioned off at the sides of the floor, in which line after line of telephones are placed, each one with its operator, who never leaves it. Then there is the telegraph service. Every transaction of any importance is sent over the wires. It has hardly taken place before the anxious watcher at some ticker reads its record on the tape, whether it be one hundred yards from the floor of the Exchange or a thousand miles away. If he is holding any particular stock that has advanced, and wishing to take advantage of the fact, he decides to sell, he telegraphs his New York brokers to sell for him. They telephone their representative on the floor of the Exchange, and in a very short time these shares are being offered, and the owner, probably miles away, watching the tape of his ticker, notes with a smile of satisfaction the records unfolding before him: 100 shares at 87-3/8, 300 shares 87¼, 200 shares at 87, and so on. These shares may have been purchased by him around 79 or 80, or possibly much less, and the transaction nets him a neat profit. It is often the reverse, though, and almost fortunes are made and lost daily by such speculations.
The stock-brokers do not like long words, as is evidenced in the terms they have regulated into a dialect of their own. To the uninitiated it is very confusing to hear such remarks as "long of stocks," "holding for a raise," "ballooning a stock," "saddling the market," "gunning a stock," etc., etc. Many of these terms are pithy, and very much to the point.
The stock-broker is generally a generous, genial, happy sort of person, well dressed, and, for a life of mental strain, with a reverse of fortune liable to strike him at any time, he keeps in wonderfully good spirits.
The Exchange is most interesting during a panic, when prices are dropping all around, and when stocks that are as solid as foundation-stones begin to drop below par. It is then that the broker grows frenzied—sometimes with fear, sometimes with rage. Fiercely he elbows, jostles, or fights his way through the mad crowd. Shout after shout ascends to the ceiling as the prices fall, and out on the street the quiet retired business man who has come down to watch his shares, only to see them rapidly falling, bites his finger-nails nervously in the anxious crowd that has gathered, listening to the roar. Messengers dart here and there, and mad haste prevails. Suddenly a silence comes over the Exchange, and the crowd on the floor have packed closely around the chairman's platform. He gravely and sadly announces the failure of some well-known firm. This will probably drag down into the vortex two or three smaller houses; and when the full import is realized by the members a deafening yell is heard, and again they dash into the fray to make, save, or lose a fortune.
Strongly contrasted to this are the jollity and merrymaking on the floor of the Exchange before the holidays. High carnival then reigns supreme, and fun and mirth grow furious. Clothes are torn, hats smashed, all in good humor. Gray-haired brokers waltz with each other, play leap-frog, sing, and carry on as wildly as the younger ones. Sometimes, but not often, the chairman imposes a fine on the members for their fun, but it is cheerfully paid. After such toil day in and day out through the long months a little exuberance of spirit is excusable.
[THE BOY WRECKERS.]
BY W. O. STODDARD.
CHAPTER II.
THE RIDDLE FROM UNDER THE WATER.
The Elephant rocked and pitched a great deal while Captain Kroom was fishing up that valise with his long boat-hook.
Pete was all the while hard at work with the oars, and he was conducting himself like a prime seaman. That is, he obeyed with scrupulous exactness all the orders he received from the veteran commander of his ship. For him, indeed, Pete evidently had a tremendous amount of respect. Much of it belonged to his belief that the old sailor knew all there was to know about whatever might be on the sea or in it.
"Sam," he said, "let that bundle alone a minute, and see if you can h'ist the sail."
"He can't h'ist a sail," growled the Captain. "He's a landlubber."
Sam's pride was up in an instant, and he caught hold of the ropes. He did know a little about them already, and he had the good luck to pull correctly. Up went the sail, just as the valise came over the side. The bundle already lay on the bottom, and it had taken all the strength Sam had to get it there.
It was not so large a bundle, to be sure, but lifting it in had been somewhat like carrying two pails of water, for it was what the Captain called "waterlogged."
Not so with the valise. It was larger than the bundle, and it must have been very heavy; but it did not seem to weigh much in the strong hands of old Kroom.
"Here we go!" he shouted. "I'll just tack around till I get a hitch on that spar. It's just what I want for a new mast to the Tiger!"
"That's his sail-boat," said Pete to Sam. "She isn't so fast as some, but she can go right out to sea. She's decked over."
"She's as safe as a pilot-boat," added the Captain. "But the feller left his key in the lock. I won't open it now. This here stuff wasn't any part of a raft. It was just a tangle. Those knots wasn't ever tied by a sailor." He seemed to read knots and ropes and sails and spars as if they carried tokens as clear to him as print. "Sam," he said, "haul that rope a little. Now I can bring her about. We'll have that spar."
So he did, in a few minutes; but the Elephant was not likely to sail any too fast with that thing towing astern. Pete had been eying the bundle curiously, and the moment he was permitted to pull in his oars he exclaimed:
"Now let's have it open. I say, Captain, it's covered with tarpaulin!"
"That didn't keep it from soaking," replied Kroom. "Cut it. Bless my soul! What on earth is that?"
The two boys had worked together in untying and opening the bundle, and now all its contents suddenly sprawled around the bottom of the boat.
"Best lot of fishing-tackle ever I saw," said Pete. "And if it isn't a full suit of blue!"
"Hope it'll fit you," said the Captain.
"Looks as if it might. Sam's got one on him. But I don't need any more tackle than I've got at home, unless it is some hooks and sinkers."
"Pete," said Sam, "spread 'em out to dry. Then you can see if they fit."
The fact was that Pete was the only member of the Elephant's crew of three who stood in need of new clothing. The suit he had on consisted mainly of a pair of baggy trousers and a tow shirt. It did not keep him from being a pretty good looking fellow, however, and his own feelings about it did not hurt him.
"Guess they won't make a dude of me," he remarked, as he spread the soaked blue suit out forward, where the wind and sun could get at it. "It's a kind of sailor rig, anyhow."
"It'll shrink to your size," said the Captain. "'Twasn't made for a big fellow."
The Elephant was now before the wind, and was tugging spitefully against the rope which bound her to the spar behind her. Now that the bundle had given up all that was in it, the next point of interest was the valise.
Once more the Captain remarked, "His key is in it."
Then he hesitated, and stared down at the key as if reading something.
"Rusty," he said. "But it doesn't take long for iron to rust in salt water. You can't judge by that."
"Captain Kroom," exclaimed Sam, "there used to be a name on this end of it, but it's kind of washed out."
"No," replied Kroom; "it's just so on this other end. It wasn't washed out; it was rubbed out. This 'ere thing's been stole."
He said it almost solemnly, and the boys felt a kind of thrill. There had been excitement enough in the idea of a wreck, and now the Captain had put in thieves also.
"Pirates?" suggested Pete. "Could they have plundered the ship?"
"No, sir!" roared the Captain. "All the pirates are dead long ago. This means wrecks and wreckers over on the south beach somewhere. Come on, boys. I'll cast off the spar. We're going across the bay. I'm no thief. I'm going to see if I can't find an owner for this valise. Ready!"
The spar was left to drift ashore as best it might, only that the Captain said he would go after it some time.
The Elephant was once more free, but her nose was pointed now toward the long low bar of sand, the narrow, tree-less island, which separated the bay from the ocean.
"He's going to run for the inlet," said Pete to Sam. "There's good fishing there, whether he finds any wreck or not."
"We're going too fast to troll," said the Captain. "No use. Besides, we want to get there as soon as we can. If there's anything I hate, it's a wrecker. I didn't think so once, but the first time I was wrecked myself I guess I learned something."
Sam had been staring curiously at the valise, and wishing that the Captain would think it right to open it, but now he turned to look at the old sailor himself. It was a good deal to be out in a boat with a man who had been wrecked. He did not really mean to say anything, but a question came up to his lips, and asked, almost without his help, "Were you wrecked 'mong savages?"
"Yes, sir, I was," growled the Captain, angrily. "We went ashore on the coast of Cornwall, in England, and the folks there believe everything that's stranded belongs to them. They didn't leave us a thing."
"They didn't hurt you, did they?" said Sam.
"I don't know but what they would, some of them, if it hadn't been for the coast police that came," said Kroom. "They kep' the crowd off, so we saved what we had on; and then they marched us away and put every man of us in jail, where the civilized Englishmen could feed us."
"That was awful!" said Pete; but he had already turned over the wet clothing once, and it was drying fast. He pulled out the wrinkles too.
"'Tisn't rotted," remarked the Captain, "or you'd ha' pulled it to pieces. I ain't worried about your having of 'em. Nor the tackle. All I want to get at is if there's been a wreck. Yes, sir, when I was wrecked in China, we saved all our chists—but then a Chinee can't wear anything we can. Perhaps they didn't want 'em. They treated us first rate."
He had been fumbling with the rusty key with one hand while he steered with the other, and now the boys heard a click.
"There!" muttered the Captain. "The lock wasn't sp'iled. I'll unstrap it."
Sam and Pete leaned forward to watch, but the soaked straps did not pull out easily, and they had to wait.
"How they do stick!" said Pete. "Captain, I can do it. It takes both hands."
The Elephant careened just then in a way to compel its sailing-master to use both of his own hands in bringing it before the wind again.
"Pitch in, Pete," he said. "Just as like as not it'll tell where it came from."
Sam let his friend work at the wet straps, while he continued to study the name at his end of the valise.
"'Tisn't a long one," he remarked; but at that moment Captain Kroom almost let go of the tiller-ropes, for the valise sprang open.
"Packed and jammed!" exclaimed Pete. "Hullo! What's this?"
"Hand me that log!" shouted the Captain, and Sam looked around the boat for loose timber. Not any kind of log was to be seen; the floating spar was long since out of sight; but Pete at once picked up and handed to Kroom a broad, thin, paper-covered blank book which lay in the middle of the valise.
"Bless my soul!" said Captain Kroom. "This 'ere's the log of the good ship Narragansett, of New Haven, and her captain's name is Pickering. The last entry in it is only a week old. Yes, sir, boys! He made it after the gale struck 'em! Before she was wrecked. This 'ere's awful! She must ha' gone all to pieces! Now for the inlet! Hurrah!"
His voice sounded excited, but he sat as steady as a post, and seemed to be giving all his attention to the management of the Elephant.
"Sam," he said, "you and Pete read some more of that log. Don't you fetch a thing in the valise. There are his barkers and his chronometer and lots o' papers. But that there alligator-skin valise was water-tight. It came across the bar at the inlet with the tide. There's current enough there then to whisk in a cannon."
Sam was a landsman, but he listened eagerly to all the Captain had to say about the ways of the coast and about the coming and going of ships. None of it seemed to be at all new to Pete; but then he had been born and brought up within sight of salt water, and he had heard Kroom talk many a time before.
The Elephant put her nose through or over the waves as if she were in a hurry, and all the while her crew were getting more accustomed to the presence of the valise. Sam studied its contents, all he could see of them, and he was learning something.
"That's the chronometer," he thought. "It's a big watch in a mahogany box. That's a splendid compass. Those pistols are what the Captain calls 'barkers.'"
"You see," remarked Kroom, as if answering him, "as soon as the commander of a ship knows he's going to be wrecked, it's his duty to save those things. He must save his log and his papers, if he can't save anything else. Captain Pickering got 'em together, and then somebody beat him out of them. Now it's my duty to get 'em to the owner of the ship. No trouble about that, but we must learn all we can first. Sam, if you've read anything, read it out. It's the worst kind of writing."
That was what Sam had found, and he had had some doubt as to how much it was right for him to read. Now, however, he was getting more courageous. It seemed so much more honest than merely fishing up things and keeping them. He read, therefore, a line or so at a time, picking it out; but it required an interpreter, for all the sentences were short and jerky.
"Stop there!" said Captain Kroom. "I'll fix it up. Never mind his latitudes and longitudes. She was a three-master, and she was in the China trade, and she was getting near home when the hurricane struck her. We had the heel of that gale all along shore last week. Blew down trees and upset things. I'll bet you the Narragansett went to pieces. Hurrah! There's the inlet. Hand me that log. I'll just shut it up. Now, boys, I'll show you what a boat of this kind can do."
"Don't you be afraid, Sam," said Pete, encouragingly. "It'll be awful rough outside the bar, but he knows. We're going right through."
RUNNING OUT OF THE INLET.
Sam did not exactly feel afraid, but he was disposed to keep a tight hold upon the gunwale of the Elephant. There was really a great deal of her, he was beginning to see, and pretty soon she was gliding along over the smooth water of the inlet. It was a channel, not straight by any means, that was nowhere over a hundred yards wide. On either side were only long ranges of low sand hills and marshes. The bay was behind them, and right ahead, Sam could not guess how far away, he could hear a booming sound, that came, he knew, from the great Atlantic billows which came rolling in to thunder and die along the shore.
"Bully breeze!" shouted Pete. "Out we go! Hurrah! Look at the surf!"
Sam was staring very earnestly indeed at the long lines of foaming water that were springing into the air, curling over and tossing to and fro in shattered masses of froth and blue. He knew that there was danger in them, and he felt queer concerning what might be coming next.
The Captain, however, was sitting as steadily as usual. Sam had seen him take something out of the valise before closing it, but he had not dared to ask any questions. He was almost afraid of Captain Kroom, and even now, as he looked at him, he was thinking:
"I wish I knew how many times he's been wrecked, and where. He must have seen the most awful kind of things."
It had been a black leather case, and now the Captain opened it, taking out a thing that Sam recognized at once.
"It's what they call an opera-glass," he said to himself, but he was wrong.
It was a binocular marine telescope of the finest kind, very much like the glasses which generals use on a battlefield to study the battle with. The Captain was now searching the lines of breakers and the open sea outside of them, and he suddenly lowered his glass to roar:
"Thereaway, boys! Just a few points southerly. Stuck on the outer bar. Hull half out of water. Not a stick standing. Two tug-boats there already, and a steamer. We've got her! Hurrah!"
He kindly held out the glass to Pete, and steadied the boat while the 'longshore boy took a long squint in the direction indicated.
"I've found her!" exclaimed Pete. "But maybe 'tisn't the Narragansett."
"You bet it is," said the Captain. "There didn't two ships o' that kind come ashore at the same time. There aren't many of 'em left nowadays, anyhow—more's the pity! The steamers have run 'em out. But I'll tell you what, boys, there's more real sailin' to be had in an old-fashioned clipper-ship than there is in all the steamers afloat. If there's anything I hate, it's a steamer."
Pete passed the glass along to Sam, but it was almost a full minute before he could find anything but waves to look at. "There she is," he said at last. "I see her, if that's her. Kind of speck." He was getting used to the glass now, and pretty quickly he was as excited as either Pete or the Captain, but he asked, anxiously, "How are we to get there?"
The line of breakers seemed to be in the way, and they looked impassable. Such a boat as the Elephant, or almost any other, would be a mere cork in the grasp of those tremendous rollers.
"They would jump us twenty feet into the air," thought Sam. "It's awful! I don't care whether he gets his old valise or not."
Pete, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking mainly of his share in the management of the Elephant, but as she swung away upon another tack, he remarked to Sam: "See that surf? Well, right in there, if they can get near enough to throw a line, the sporting fishermen strike the biggest bass you ever saw. Takes half an hour to pull one in sometimes."
That was a kind of fun of which Sam knew nothing, but he replied: "We'll come again and try it on. But where are we going now?"
"You'll see in a minute," said Pete.
It was many minutes, instead of only one, before Sam had any clear idea of what Captain Kroom was up to. The Elephant appeared to be running along the seaward line of the sand-bar, between that and the breakers. Then to the left Sam saw a break in the surf—a streak of pretty smooth water with foaming "boilers" on both sides of it. Into that streak the old sailor steered the three-cornered boat.
Oh, how she did dance, and how Sam did hold on! But he did not utter a sound, and the next thing he knew the mere cockle-shell under him was sailing along well enough, safely enough, over the long regular swells, not at all boisterous or dangerous, of the great ocean that was three thousand miles wide.
"I didn't believe he could do it," thought Sam. "We may get to the Narragansett, but how on earth are we to get back again?"