Chronicles and characters of the stock exchange

by of the Bank of England John Francis

“Not long ago, a friend of my own, ignorant of the rule so rigidly enforced for the expulsion of strangers, chanced to drop in, as he phrased it, to the Stock Exchange. He walked about for nearly a minute without being discovered to be an intruder, indulging in surprise at finding that the greatest uproar and frolic prevailed in a place in which he expected there would be nothing but order and decorum. All at once, a person, who had just concluded a hasty but severe scrutiny of his features, sent out, at the full stretch of his voice, ‘Fourteen hundred.’ Then a bevy of the gentlemen of the house surrounded him. ‘Will you purchase any new Navy five per cent., Sir,’ said one, eagerly, looking him in the face. ‘I am not——’; the stranger was about to say he was not going to purchase stock of any kind, but was prevented finishing his sentence by his hat being, through a powerful application of some one’s hand to its crown, not only forced over his eyes, but over his mouth also. Before he had time to recover from the stupefaction into which the suddenness and violence of the eclipse threw him, he was seized by the shoulders, and wheeled about as if he had been a revolving-machine. He was then pushed about from one person to another, as if he had only been the effigy of some human being, instead of a human being himself. After tossing and hustling him about in the roughest possible manner, denuding his coat of one of its tails, and tearing into fragments other parts of his wardrobe, they carried him to the door, where, after depositing him on his feet, they left him to recover his lost senses at his leisure.”

In a graphic picture of the Stock Exchange, drawn by one who had every opportunity of testing its truth, the following will confirm the above description, and affords an interesting evidence of the civilization of the Stock Exchange in 1828:—

“I turned to the right, and found myself in a spacious apartment, which was nearly filled with persons more respectable in appearance than the crew I had left at the door. Curious to see all that was to be seen, I began to scrutinize the place and the society into which I had intruded. But I was prevented from indulging the reflections which began to suggest themselves, by the conduct of those about me. A curly-haired Jew, with a face as yellow as a guinea, stopped plump before me, fixed his black, round, leering eyes full on me, and exclaimed, without the slightest anxiety about my hearing him, ‘So help me Got, Mo, who is he?’ Instead of replying in a straightforward way, Mo raised his voice as loud as he could, and shouted with might and main, ‘Fourteen hundred new fives!’ A hundred voices repeated the mysterious exclamation. ‘Fourteen hundred new fives!’ ‘Where, where,—fourteen hundred new fives,—now for a look; where is he? Go it, go it!’ were the cries raised on all sides by the crowd, which rallied about my person like a swarm of bees. And then Mo, by way of proceeding to business, repeating the war-cry, staggered sideways against me, so as almost to knock me down. My fall, however, was happily prevented by the kindness of a brawny Scotchman, who, humanely calling out, ‘Let the mon alone,’ was so good as to stay me in my course with his shoulder, and even to send me back towards Mo with such violence, that, had he not been supported by a string of his friends, he must infallibly have fallen before me. Being thus backed, however, he was enabled to withstand the shock, and to give me a new impulse in the direction of the Scotchman, who, awaiting my return, treated me with another hoist as before, and I found these two worthies were likely to amuse themselves with me, as with a shuttlecock, for the next quarter of an hour. I struggled violently to extricate myself from this unpleasant situation, and, by aiming a blow at the Jew, induced Moses to give up his next hit, and to allow me for a moment to regain my feet.

“The rash step which I had taken was likely to produce very formidable consequences. All present were highly exasperated. The war became more desperate than ever. Each individual seemed anxious to contribute to my destruction; and some of their number considerately called out, ‘Spare his life, but break his limbs.’

“My alarm was extreme; and I looked anxiously round for the means of escape.

“‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself to use the gentleman in that sort of way,’ squeaked a small, imp-like person, affecting sympathy, and then trying to renew the sport.

“‘How would you like it yourself,’ cried another, ‘if you were a stranger?’ shaking his sandy locks with a knowing look, and knocking off my hat as he spoke.

“I made a desperate blow at this offender. It did not take effect, from the expedition with which he retreated, and I had prudence enough to reflect that it would be better to recover my hat than to pursue the enemy. Turning round, I saw my unfortunate beaver, or ‘canister,’ as it was called by the gentry who had it in their keeping, bounding backwards and forwards between the Caledonian and his clan and the Jew and his tribe.

“Covered with perspiration, foaming with rage, and almost expiring from heat and exhaustion, I at last succeeded. I did not dare to reinstate it, but was forced to grasp it with both hands, in order to save what remained of it. I baffled several desperate snatches, one of which carried away the lining, and was now trying to keep the enemy at bay, afraid again to attack the host opposed to me, but not knowing how to retreat, when a person who had not previously made himself conspicuous approached and interfered. ‘Really, you had better go out’; at the same time pointing to a door I had not seen before.”

Comment is unnecessary; and, however the practice may be repudiated by the members when out of the house, there are few who would not, in it, act in a similar disreputable mode.