The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-01
TEN MINUTES IN THE PARIS BOURsE.

/known as 'GrayDeard, OF EorneyS FTeSS,
contributes highly interesting article under
the above title to the current number of the
Washington Sunday Chronicle q portion of
which we quote:--
l shall always cherish with peculiar delight
the recollections of my visit to the Old
World, and the felicity 1 experienced in
1 mingling with its people, admiring its monu-
ments of art, architecture, and literature, and
sauntering among its ruins. What propose
now, however, is q brief description of an in
cident in my European experience more
strange than pleasing-my visit to the great
Money Exchange of the French metropolis
or Palace de la Bourse @
In accordance with my natural tendency to
violent transitions, 1 made it rule while
abroad, whenever it was practicable to do so,
to witness in quick succession the great op-
posite extremes. 1 drove through the Bois
de Boulogne and descended the Cataco nba
on the same day for precisely this reason
In the former / encountered Parisians, gay
dashing, superb, hilarious db0Ue ground
y in the latter 1 saw the disjointed skeletons of
their fathers and kindred, assorted and
sbelved like the wares of a merchant, in a
Dgrim, awful, ghastly cavern Of the dead.
My visit to La BOurse was scarcely less
striking transition from the crypts of the
l. Pantheon. In the latter had examined the
tombs of Mirabau, Marat, Voltaire, and Ros-
seau, and been we'll nigh deafened by the
laundering and very remarkable echoes of
the place, sounding as if the immense struc-
ture was being battered to its base by sue
J cessive volleys of artillery. In the former 1
was about to hear, not the dead sounds of
subterrauean masonry, but, as it seemed to
me, the living echoes of hell itself.
u First, as the name. B0urSe in French,
J BO7Se in German, and Birza in Russia, are
supposed to have their origin in the belief
that the first gathering of the kind occurred
early in the sixteenth century at Bruges in
Belgium, in the house of M. Van der
Beurse This is not the only instance in
which the Dutch have led the gan in popular
modern ideas.
"A The Paris Bourse is situated in the very
heart of the city, and occupies an entire
square, with streets on it's four sides, the edi-
fee itself being surrounded by colonnade
OF sixty-six Corinthian pillars, and presented
very imposing appearance as we approached
its western front from Rue Vivienne The
area of this structure is PIP by 1876 feet and
its four corners are embellished by statues
representing Industry, Agriculture, Com
merce, and Navigation.
The time of commencing business at this
institution is - o'clock; its hour of adjourn
ment p NJ. and as 1 had learned that it's
most appalling climax was usually reached at
13O, l directed my driver to land me there at
that hour 1t was 30 when 1 arrived The
street in front was densely thronged with
vehicles 1t was a beautiful October day,
and for few moments 1 kept my seat in the
4 open couture dc place, surveying the stately
4 edifce and the excited crowd of at least two
hundred men that surged beneath the west
ern portico. was full fifty PAGES from the
entrance, but the sound that issued from
within was quite audible, and suggested
the rushing, mighty wind" employed as a
B figure to describe the advent of the
Spirits power on the day of Pentacost-not
doubling, however, that the noise which 1
heard was caused by very different spirit.
l alighted and assembled the steps, passed
through the outer throng, and entered the
portals of the far-famed Exchange 1 was
not an altogether inexperienced observer,
having previously attended the Exchanges of
London and Amsterdam, witnessed the exhi-
fbitions in the New York Gold Room, and
heard the howlings of the Wall street bulls
81 and bears. But all these were like the
\ crooing of doves compared to the acoustic
4 idabolism into which 1 was now to be ini-
tiated. AS l entered the sound grew more
3 violent, and when l got fairly within, the
a scene was indescribable. will not pretend
81 to set down what took place, as the entire
medley of incoherent sounds, unintelligibly
4 uttered, were to me the veriest gibberish i'm
Esginable. 1 will only transcribe, as best 1
can, the never-to be-forgotten impression
then and there made upon my mind
The sound of the thousand voices which
III upon my ear, all pitched at key of infu-
rated avarice, might with ones eyes closed
have suggested the raging fury that rends in
shivers the rigging of a ship in hurricane at
sea; or the awful mutteriDgs that accompany
an earthquake or precede the eruption of q
volcano; or the submerged meanings that
issue from the inexplorable caverns of the
deep; or the peals of anguish and despair
= that tear the hearts of ships crew about Ito
take their death-leap from burning vessel;
or even the shrieks of the damned, quivering
on the brink of everlasting destructi IN I
! say that to blind observer this vocal med
ley might bave resembled all of these sounds,
or any others outside of heaven, but it was
probably not exactly like any other thing
on earth, or in the waters under the earth. The
money-huDgering chaunt of the Paris Bourse
is Sut geneT1S. Itself can be its only parallel.
Hundreds of spectators are witnessing the
mad scene from the galleries thirty feet
J above. They are wise in keeping at SO safe a
distance. felt myself, on the ground floor,
like lamb in menagerie and instinctively
instituted closer vigilance over my pocket
book. There were around me at least thou
sand active participants in the business of the
! hour, and, IN the dark, no living soul would
. have imagined that their deafening camor
proceeded from human lungs. The faces of
these men were to me deeper and more
! significant study than the pictures in the
! Louvre or the relics in the CLu4y. Here was
4 Paris in a nutshell-the financial princes of
! the queen city of the whole earth, besotted,
maddened. blighted, cursed to moral blind
] ness, by 1.-THE root of all evip'-the LO0e Of