The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-12-22


expected by the operators. They are pretty cool
and accurate in their calculations but the
atmosphere of the Gold Room almost lnevitably
perverts a mans judgment, and brings him tC
grief in the long run. A few days ago WORD
came that President johnson had sent a des
patch of five thousand words by the Atlantic
cable to Paris.
'This was known in the Gold Room before the
despatch had got cut OF the Washington tee.
graph office-perhaps before IL had left the
state Department. Great was the powwow in
Western merchant who happened TO be there,
turned the matter over In his mind and con.
cluded that it did not make much difference
what kind of despatch Mr.. Seward had sent to
| Europe. He reasoned that the people were not
well enough pleased with Andrew johnson to
follow him into foreign war, even If that were
the purport of the despatch. He called a
broker TO his side and authorized him to ope-
rate for decline within three days, and made
| four thousand dollars by having at the moment
| grain more OF common sense, or q better ac-
quaintance with the temper OF the American
people, than the average of the Gold Room.
| CONFUSION.
! 81 remarked at the beginning that the Gold
| Room was great curiosity, aud that it fur
| mshed remarkable illustration of the cana.
Dllltles OF the human mind. The proceedings of
| the Board OF Stock Brokers have been often
described as Bedlam in which all shout at
| once, and shout without ceasng, and yet trans
act business IN the most expeditions and orderly
| manner. The Stock Board is provided with a
moderator and two reporters thus having the
semDlance OF parliamentary law for its govern
| meut. The Gold Board has nothing of the kind
| IL is ceaSeleSs jangle, whirlpool of voices
| without order, without umpire, referee or stake
| nolder. Yet as 1t spins on, millions upon mil
! lions are bought and sold, the prices of all
| goOos, wares, merchandise, produce bonds
| STOCKS, and property generally throughout the
| country are marked up or down, obediently TO
the lnexora6le indicator in the Gold Room.
HOW tneSe men can understand each other
ana avoid making mistakes, is a mystery In
any large telegraphic office in the country you
| VIII see twenty or thirty Morse instruments
| clicking together and perhaps House print
lng-machlne adding ITS hop-skIp-and- Jump TO the
chorus Each operator hears and understands
his own instrument, even though he be ten feet
from 1t, and he does not hear any other. have
often paused to admire the scene in large tele-
graph Office rs wonderful example OF the per-
1ecubllity OF the human ear; but in the Gold
Room one must not only discern separate
sounds in the midst of dense confusion, and
record them accurately, but must have all his
wits on the stretch at once, aud vet preserve a
perfect equilibrium OF Judgment.
Now and then the noise flags, and almost
ceases. While | was there, 1t ceased for a
moment entirely. The smokers placidly puffed
| thelr olue wreaths upward, and the murmur of
! the litte fountain became audible. In ten
| seconds Bedlam had broken loose again wilder
than ever Market excited said my friend, to
whose politeness was indebted for an introduc-
non 10 the room; and almost imme 1iateIy the
indicator rose from 14ll to I4l2. The idea thar
these twenty or thirty men we're the market
| and that when they exchanged wells q triAe
more vociferously than usual the market was
excited struck me as so droll that | laughed
lmmoderately. 1t was nevertheless true These
men were the Market and the market wasiex.
cited. Some spark OF information had iust
come from some quarter OF the globe which
warranted the operators in believing that United
States legal-tender notes were worth a fraction
less than they were ten seconds before. The
Gold Room is as sensitive to news as the
'thermo-electric pile to heat.
CLASSES OF OPERATORS.
There are two classes of operators in the
Gold Room-commission men and SPECTATORS
The former buy and sell for others. With them
it is heads win, tails you lose. Their com
mission is a certainty, and if they can resist the
temptation to do little on their private account
they make money. The speculators make none!
Rlch to-day, poor Tomorrow, is the rule with
them. Those who make money cannot get
away. When a man makes a million in the
Gold Room, it is as though he had swallowed a
gallon OF salt water at one draught to quench
his thirst. He must have more. So he stays
and loses It, II he e. loses more than he has and
cannot pay his differences, he must take mis-
place at the outer railing. Even then he can.
not drag himself away from the place. The
evil genius OF gambling has possession of HIM.
II holds hlm fast. Yonder,' said my COM
panion, ''is young man who might
have gone away with two millions of dollars
He was worth it once. He is now among the
'dead-beats,' as poor as any OF them. They have
dll Utcu IlCu Ill luClI lltDGs' L looked over to
the 'dead-beat apartment, and saw a youth
whose cast OF countenance might have inspired
Tennyson TO write the Lotus Eaters Such
mild and melancholy eyes, such an expression
OF hXed uncertainty and motiOnless unrest If
would be hard to lind save in the Gold Room
or a faro-able. OF the 'dead-beats' generally it
might be said:-
" In the afternoon they came unto land.
In which it seemed always afternoon,
All round the coast the langud air did swoou
Breathing like one tnat hath a weary dream
Applying to the Gold Room the rule of ave.
RACES, II stands to reason that nobody should
make money in the long run. Buying and
selling gold produces no wealth. The miner in
California brings gold into the world. He adds
to the stock OF useful commodity. But the
broker in the Gold Room adds nothing to it,
Out ofnothing, nothing comes. But these men
are not really buying aud selling gold. Gold is
the only stable thing going. ltlS in equatbrjO
or so nearly thus, that It's fluctuations take
| place only through periods of years. The men
OF the Gold Room are really buying and selling
United States currency. Is anything TO be
made, III the aggregate, out of this? Certainly
not. Paper money, as Hawthorne some where
| says is but the shadow of shade. They might
as well trade so many tons OF moonshine-
seller three-as to stand there gambling in the
paper promises Ct the Government. | speak of
the transactions as a whole; OF course somebody
makes and somebody loses IN nearly every
transaction. Sometimes an operator will have
a run OF extraordinary luck, which induce; him
TO believe that he knows it all. When he reaches
this point he is gone! The idea OF ones infaili-
bllitJ is fatal in the Gold ROOm-Or out oft for
that matter,
USES OF THE GOLD ROOM.
ITO say that the Gold Room is not useful
would be altogether wrong. 1t is not only use
iul but necessary. should not wish any friend
OF mine TO do much business in it, but it must
be recognized as necessity of the times. It's
method OF doing business was never invented by
any Dooy. Men slid mo It, just as men slid into