[BOYS IN WALL STREET.]
BY COL. THOMAS W. KNOX,
Author of the "Boy Travellers" Series.
The visitor to Wall Street in business hours will see many active, bright, pleasant-looking boys moving more or less rapidly in all directions, and evidently absorbed in work. Some are in blue or gray uniforms, but the majority are in plain clothes, and almost invariably neatly dressed. The uniformed are employed by telegraph and messenger companies, the others by bankers, brokers, and other men of affairs.
Their chances of rising are about as many as boys ever have—the really able, honest, and pushing boys go up as they grow older. As a dignified-looking gentleman passes along the sidewalk we are told: "That is the president of the —— Bank. He knows Wall Street and all its ins and outs. Been here all his life. Began as an office-boy in a brokerage house; became partner; got elected a member of the Stock Exchange; now he is near the top of the heap. I could name several bank presidents who began as brokers' boys at two or three dollars a week."
Our informant went on, "Yes, and there are lots of cashiers of banks and other banking officials who began life in the same way. The partners in a great many banking and brokerage firms began as Wall Street boys."
Boys have begun in Wall Street at one dollar a week. Employers can generally tell in a week or two whether the boy is likely to "amount to anything." If the boy is faithful and energetic his wages are advanced so that he gets three dollars a week in two or three months from the start. Boys usually get not far from one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars for the first year, and from three hundred upwards the second year. A prominent banker of New York once told me:
"My father died when I was sixteen years old, and that threw my mother and myself on our own resources. We had so little money or property that it was necessary for me to leave school and go to work. As the late Thurlow Weed had been a warm friend of my father, I came to New York to ask for his influence in getting a clerkship in the Custom-house, or something of the sort. I knew Mr. Weed as a boy of my age would know a man of his, and he greeted me cordially. When I had told him my story he said:
"'Now, Charley, find a cheap boarding-place and send your address to me. Don't come to me again, but as soon as I have anything for you I will write to you. Meantime look around and see what you can find for yourself.'