You may have noticed how great a variety exists in the characters and dispositions of the members of every large family, and will not be surprised to hear that the same individuality of character shows itself in the family of Funds and Stocks.
In introducing you to the steadiest and most reliable of my children, I feel that I am putting you in the way of deriving real advantage. If, however, you prefer the less worthy, the more daring and speculative, I shall feel that no blame attaches to me.
Have you ever remarked, in your round of visits among your friends, that it is almost possible to tell the character of host and hostess by the people you meet there, and even by the servants who wait upon you—all seem to take the tone of the house? I notice this specially among my children. For example, my “Three per Cent. Consols” and my “New Three’s,” whom I select as specially suited to be your friends, have the most courteous, kindly, sober and religious class of visitors; on the faces of all, old and young, clergy and laity, there is an expression of repose and security and “well-to-doism” which is charming; while, on the other hand, the faces and manners of those who visit some of my other children are so wild, so haggard, so restless, that you cannot help wishing that some good fairy would give them a soothing syrup, or else insist on their choosing safer friends; but if you ever pay me a visit, and use your eyes, you will see more of this than, as a mother, I can tell you.
Against one thing, however, I am, as your friend, bound to warn you. Listen to no one who proposes to let you have money at a very cheap rate, while at the same time he offers to pay you large interest on it. More I cannot say at present.
Closely connected with me, and in my neighbourhood, stands a most mysterious building, known as the Stock Exchange. Its chief entrance is in Capel-court, Bartholomew-lane.
None may pass within its portals but those specially privileged, still I may tell you something about it without breaking through any of the barriers which the inhabitants have set up between the public and themselves.
This Stock Exchange is an association of about two thousand persons, all men, of course, who meet together in Capel-court, and who agree to be governed by a committee of thirty, chosen from among themselves.
To the outside world, all the members are known by the name of “stockbrokers,” but inside the mysterious building they divide themselves into two classes—“stockjobbers” and “stockbrokers.”
Whether they be one or the other, their lives, occupations, fortunes and reputations are bound up with the Stocks and Funds. They live for them and they live on them. They determine their value, they study every shade of temper exhibited by the family, they decide their rise and fall, they are their interpreters and mouthpieces, they act also as their bodyguard: none can approach but through them.
These two classes, jobbers and brokers, have a distinct work, which I will try to make clear to you.