Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-04-02
PRICE ONE CENT.
The New York Stock Exchange and the
Mode offts Operation.

Inc VIEW Ork correspondent vi tlo TeoS
and Tribune thus Daguerreotypes the Outside
roonr Of the Brokers Board:
The New York Stock Exchange is famous
enough; but very little has been said Of the
most curious aspect, there presented, viz
that of the "outer room"-so called because
it Il the lobby of the Board-room proper. To
reach the hall Of Brokers, one goes down
passage leading from William-street, two
hundred feet to a courtyard in the rear.
Here turn an abrupt corner, into dark and
narrow passage, above whose doorway should
be inscribed the famous line, which Dante
placed above the arch of the entrance of the
the world Of woe: .. ...-.
All hope abandon, ye who enter herel'
Pass along for a tortuous score of yards, and
you will come to two doors; the one on the
right leads to the Board-room, where the
one hundred and fifty brokers, from half-past
ten, A. NJ, till noon, and from half-past two till
three ?. NJ, transact the business reported in
the daily papers. The scene within the Board
room has been often described. But, instead
of turning to your right enter the door in
front and you are in the lobby-room. A
cheap, small dirty den it is; its uncarpeted
floor deep with nut-shells and foul with to-
bacco-iufce, and its atmosphere dense with
smoke. Here, in q space scarcely large
enough for q backwood's school-room, are
crowded over fifty men of all ages and ma
tions. These compose the street operators
or 'curb-stone brokers' Some OF them have
offices, more have none. f.i...
They are made up of several classes. lst.
The broken brokers who have lost their seats
by failure on contracts, and here linger in
limbo striving to make enough to pay their
debts and get back to their former paradise;
I'd. Operators, men of means who sit silently
listening to the reports, which are shouted
through q speaking-tube communicating
with the inner room, and every now and
then sending in written orders to their
brokers. Sd. Operators, men of straw, who
deal almost exclusively in that great staple,
''New York Central, among each other or
with whatever broker or Weather operator
who is willing to take their contracts. In
this room the business done is sheer gam
bling. Whattremendous excitement What
eager listening to every quotation clammered
through the pipe by bluff Geo. H, and
shouted to the outsiders by rubicund Richard
D., familiarly known as "Dick Swiveller"
to every man in the street What iostling
and crowding to the windows overlooking
the passage to the Board-room, whose tele-
graphic dispatches are every instant coming
| from Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati--aye
and not few from your own speculative
townsmenl What Jokes and laughter,
rowdyism and buffoonery, smashing of hats,
jostling strangers, throwing snow-balls, offers
to sell and buy, angry words crowding
around q stray member from inside, eating
peanuts, smoking, swearing, shouting, sing
ing-such scene can be witnessed nowhere
else in the United Statesl 1t is Bedlam in
! riot-it is Bacchanal without wine. d.
Between the sessions of the Board, the
regular brokers mingle with these men on
the sidewalk, and heavier operations are of
tener transacted at this time than at the
Board ITSELF One would think, on first en-
tering the outer room, and hearing all about
him such cries as-"Pl give seventy-one
buyer ten, for hundred Central-Sold."
''Ill sell five hundred at 7o7s, seller 81 ''pll
sell fifty regular way" "Who wants one
hundred and fifty Galena." Hearing all
this noise of business, one would suppose
himself surrounded with millionaires, by each
of whom thousand shares of Panama would
be easily carried. But when the scales drop
from his eyes, he learns that half of these men
haven't a hundred dollars in the world;
that their credit depends, like that of a
gambler, on the lastlucky "hit' they may have
made; that difference" of 800 sometimes
breaks them; that they are merely engaged
| in buying one moment and selling the next,
or rice rersa for the turn of the market
and think themselves lucky if they make 4
per cent. on hundred shares (S12 SOY that
they get along very well in stagnant times
| DuJ Ill Jue BTcul spring anu lull movements
when stocks vary several per cent per diem
they are scattered and overthrown like chat
before the whirlwind.
Yet these are the habitues of the street.
while others come, make and lose, leaving
room for the next wave of adventures, thest
keep their places, greet each other daily, los
ing few of their number, except by death
gaining few, except those who go through
with a kind of moral and pecuniary death
that renders them unfit for any other pursui
than the sad, boisterous feverish life of ''tht
street." t-
These men have kindly ''fellow feeling
for each other-some such emotion as may
exist between prisoners in one cell, starvel
ings in the same famine, slaves in the sam,
galley. If one of their number is entirely
"cleaned out" though he may have "failet
on" them severally, they are quick to hell
him to few dollars, and to take his contract
for fresh start AS their dealings are base,
on honor certain chivarous regard for one
word is to be found among them. Lastly,
observe that the rowdyism continually goinj
on in their room is rather of a mirthful thai
an ugly nature, and seems to act as kind o
safety-valve for the tremendous excitemen
and suspense under which the market is a
all times laboring.