The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-11-05 00:00:00

A DAILY COMIC PERFORMANCE.

There is a comic performance given every day in
New York, which, although not regularly announced
in the newspapers among the amusements, yet far
outdoes in humorous quality the broadest fun of Mr.
Fox's company at the Olympic, of the opera bouffe at
the Grand Opera, or of any of the negro minstrel buf-
foons. It takes place during daylight, in the heart of
the busines, community, and just where transactions
of the largest magnitude and gravest concern con.
tinstally occur. It is a performance that has a certain
air of sobriety to all the world not immediately
within its ken, and • good many people everywhere
watch the husineoi transactions connected with it,
without being the least suspicious of the uproarious
fun going on. This refers to the gold and stock
room, where, It would sometimes appear, are coseen-
trated all the superfluous spirits, all the grotesque
humours, all the mirth of the town. Few people know
with what childish glee, with what light and happy
laughter, the transactions of the room are conducted.
The crowd has usually the appearance of • mob of
boys just out of school. Now one grave and reverend
speculator in Erie knocks the hat of • dealer in New
York Central over his eyes. Now a bull, maneauvring
for a rise in gold, is suddenly set upon because of anew
coat or a novel necktie, and mauled to his heart's die.
quiet. Tricks of all sorts abound, and practical jokes
have their full sway in these precincts. The other day
was one of lIIIIIPIIaI sport. A. notice had been put up
in llre gold room forbidding white hats later than the
25th of September, and declaring all captured after
that date should be contraband of war. On the 21l1h
a number of careless or hardy brokers appeared in
the room wearing white hats. For a time all went
along smoothly, until, as the spirits of the brokers
began to rise with the excitement of buying and selling,
some one rushed upn and knocked off the white hat of
a man engaged at the moment in vociferously offering
to sell some shares of Erie. This was the signal for a
melte which even the New York gold or stock room
had not seen. Every white hat, of high or low degree,
was rushed upon, and in an instant the air was filled
with those head-coverings Those who wore the
white hats endeavoured to resist the onslaught, and
soon the whole place became such a bedlam as when
hundred schoolb tys, ripe for mischief and play,
come together. Two or three of the white hat
owners managed to escape, but the great m•j !ray
were caught and their hate either cruebed over their
eyes, sent whirling across the room, or trodden into in.
distinguishable shapes. Thirty-seven utterly disabled
hats were left upon the field, but how many of the
wounded were carried off by their friends, the reports
do not say. In this playful manner do New York men
of business conduct the exchange of stocks, of gold, of
bonds and of bullion. In this spirit of childish merri-
ment do the bulls and bears assemble, and thus lightly,
and gracefully, and felicitously, are the solemn and
momentous affairs of business shorn of their weariness.