Such is the scene during the early hours, but as the morning advances the picture changes. In the center of the room are four octagonal “pits,” formed by short flights of steps which rise from the floor on the outside and again descend on the inside. In these so-called pits is carried on the heaviest business of the Exchange. One is devoted to the sale of wheat, another to corn, and a third to provisions, pork, lard, etc. Gradually, as the minutes and hours pass, they fill with an eager crowd of traders, which swells in numbers until the area itself and the steps leading to it, are literally jammed with an[an] excited throng, yelling, gesticulating, waving their arms and shaking their fists in each other’s faces. The hum has risen to a surge, and to the onlooker in the gallery the scene seems to have been transformed into Bedlam or pandemonium. On the upper row of steps of one of the pits, men stand facing each other, forty feet apart. One raises his hand and makes what appear to be cabalistic signals to the other, who makes some other equally mysterious signs. Then each produces a card on which he makes an entry, and the dumb show is duplicated by others. To understand this pantomime, no less than the significance of these frenzied cries and frantic gyrations of arms and fingers requires an education of peculiar character, the education of the habitué of the floor. Each motion of the hand, each turn of a finger has its significance, representing the quantity of the particular commodity sold, and the price at which it is bought. These angry, dissonant voices, proceed from the hoarse throats of opposing factions, one trying to “bull” and the other to “bear” the market, and each striving to rival the other in clamor and persistency. No wonder that the excitement is intense. The entire wheat crop of the country is being sold before it is harvested, and much of it before it is planted, and on transactions of such magnitude a variation in price of even a fraction of a cent, means the gain to one and loss to another of tens of thousands of dollars. Fortunes are accumulated and sunk in an hour. One operator sees wealth within his grasp; another perceives bankruptcy staring him in the face. It is not strange that under such circumstances the strongest passions in the human breast should struggle for mastery, and find vent in expressions as wild as they are exaggerated.
Yet outside this howling, seething, surging crowd, within hailing distance from the center of all this hubbub (were language audible at a distance of thirty feet), sits a row of men, some of them in the prime of life, some of them scarcely past its meridian, others wearing the silver crown of age. Cool, collected, seemingly dispassionate, they exchange conversation which appears to be humorous, to judge from the laughter which it provokes. To the casual observer, they seem to be in the “madding crowd,” but not of it. Yet one who carefully watches their movements may see that from time to time signals are exchanged between some one or other of them and some individual on the steps of the pit. These men, thus sitting apart, are the great operators, those who make prices, and whose every movement is watched, as possibly affording a clue to their intentions. Jealously, however, do they guard their secrets; impassable are their countenances, and imperturbable their demeanor. With the seemingly stolid indifference of the veteran gamester, who sees his last dollar swept from the table by the turn of a card and gives no sign of regret, these men calmly witness the wiping out of a fortune by a rise or fall in prices, and manifest not the slightest indication of emotion.
To the visitor sitting aloft the spectacle is strange, bewildering, fascinating.
But let us descend to the floor, to enter upon which the stranger must obtain a card of admission. Here one passes men who have won largely, but whose countenances betray no symptom of exultation, and others whose losses have been heavy, yet whose laughing faces and merry jests indicate no dissatisfaction either with the world or with life. The busy operators at the telegraph key-board are too much absorbed in their work to give heed to the Babel of confusion around them. Messenger boys scurry hither and thither, in anxious quest of men for whom they bear tidings, perhaps of grave consequence. Suspended from various points about the room are charts, tables and diagrams, relating to almost every conceivable subject, the report and forecast of the Signal Service office; the supply of cereals at every market in the civilized world; the movement of breadstuffs and provisions at home and abroad; the cargoes of steam-ships from American, European and East Indian ports; comparative statements of receipts and shipments; and one thousand and one other matters, a knowledge of which may be of interest to members. On the front of one of the long galleries are huge dials, whose index fingers record the fluctuations of prices in the pit. On days when speculation runs riot and excitement is more than usually rampant, these pointers sway to and fro with a rapidity of movement almost bewildering.
But before we have satisfied our curiosity, or sufficiently indulged our admiration of the completeness of the mechanism of the gigantic machine whose revolutions we have been contemplating, the striking of the great gong indicates that the active business for the day in one of the world’s greatest marts has closed. To one who has regarded the transactions with the indifference of a chance spectator, this sound means little more than the tolling of the bell, which in some high tower marks the hour. But on more than one listening ear upon the floor it falls like the knell of doom. To many a venturesome speculator who has unfortunately placed himself upon the wrong side of the market, it is ominous of a crisis in his affairs which must be promptly met if he is not to be overtaken by ruin, perhaps by disgrace. He must become a borrower, or be publicly posted as being unable to meet his contracts. Perhaps he has already overstrained his credit, and knows that his commercial paper must go to protest. Who can surmise all the varied feelings which the sound of that gong awakens in the breasts of not a few of those who hear it? Yet no sign of emotion is visible in the vast throng of brokers and their principals as they descend the broad marble staircase or hurry to the elevators. They laugh, smoke and chat as though they were returning from a merrymaking, rather than from a gathering where millions of money had been staked, and where, perchance, some of them had sold their honor for a mess of pottage.
The charter powers bestowed upon some of these commercial corporations is enormous, rivalling those conferred upon courts of law. Thus, the charter of the Chicago Board of Trade contains the following provision:
Section 7, after providing for the appointment of a “Committee of Reference and Arbitration,” and a “Committee on Appeals,” and fixing their jurisdiction, further provides that “the acting chairman of either of said committees, when sitting as arbitrators, may administer oaths to the parties and witnesses, and issue subpœnas and attachments compelling the attendance of witnesses, the same as justices of the peace, and in like manner directed to any constable to execute.”
OPERATORS EXCITED.
