Iron County register., 1882-06-22
The New York Stock Exchange.-

The Stock Exchange has now mem.
bership of 1,100. A seat in it would
cost to-day S25 200, if there were any
for sale. The number of members Is
limited to l, 100, however, and vacancies
do not often occur. Seats in the Ex-
change sold as low as $4,000 after the
panic of 1878, and as high as $33,OOO in
the big boom of eighteen months ago.
Vacancies are occasioned by the retire.
ment or death of the members or by
their suspension for breach OF the
rules. A seat can not be willed to any
one, but must be sold at private sale by
the executor of the estate of which it is
part, and the person who purchases
can not make any use of it until he has
been examined by the governors. q
band of forty shrewd men, whose prin-
cipal occupation is the investigation
either of men who want to buy seat or
of securities presented for place on
what is known as the list, viz: the cata-
logue of speculative stock and bonds
dealt in In the Exchange. In either
case the reputation, worth, Indebtedness
and entire history must be submitted to
the examiners. A seat in the Exchange
may be forfeited for misconduct, and as
this can never be sold and may not give.
place to another, there is a possibility
that in the course of several thousands i
of years the Exchange win in this man,
ner wipe itself out of existence. I say
several thousands of years., because
while there would be found any number
of methods of causing the forfeiture OF
the seat of any man who might make
himself generally odious to the mem
bers, the only breach of the rules that is
ordinarily made the medium for the de-
cree is the heinious offense of s'cutting
the Commission" which is to say trans
acting business at less than the rate
fixed by the Exchange.
The members have recently spent
about half million dollars in improv- :,
ing their quarters. In the first place,
they enlarged the building by taking in
a strip in the rear, which, when built.
over, made the Board room, as the mar
ket hall is called, considerably. larger
than it was. They also raised a tower
ing front on Broad street (thes Wall g
street front is in reality only a hallway,
facing D. o. Mills gigantic Office build,
ing, and in their effort to have the fa-Ff
cade rich and ornamental have mingled
so many architectural effects that none
are pre-eminent, and the result is pain
full to a practiced eye. About the only r.,
part of the curious building that re-
mains wholly as it was is the safe-de-
posit vault room in the cellar, which,
although it was the first Of the modern
order of gigantic vault systems, is said
not yet to have been excelled for Sc
curity or cost. Here, it is said, Samuel
). Tilden keeps the major part of his
heap of securities and Jay Gould stores
what the slangy brokers fippantly
speak of as his ''boodle." Three armed
men are locked in the vault chamber
every night.
Besides the gain of room, the main
in the reconstructed Board
room has been through various devices
to lessen the noise and confusion in that
most noisy and disorderly of apart
ments. As it was, the messengers and
racket in calling necessarily, and at the
brokers for whom there were callers,
telegrams or letters. An ingenious ar
rangement of speaking tubes from each
of the multitudinous doorways to table
near the telegraph Instruments, in the
southern end of the big room is the
means of Avoiding most, of this extra
and unnecessary noise. A young man
at this table applies the tubes to his ear,
and hearing the name of a broker for
whom there is visitor, looks ON chart
near at hand for, the number by, which
that broker is designated, and, finding
it, presses an electric button in the table,.
and throws in immense white numerals l.
the designated number ON the big black
board on the gallery front overhead.
The broker sees the number, and going
to the youth at the table, learns at which
door to find his visitor. Letters and tel
egrams are delivered by the messengers
without word being spoken, by means
of envelopes, which every broker sup
plies, whereons the brokers' numbers are
printed in large type. These envelopes
the boys hold over their heads as they
push their way through the crowded
room until the broker whose number is
displayed claims the missive.
Even now, however, there is SO much
noise that q person unaccustomed to it
to use trite expression not hear
himself think. But to the brokers l.
have no doubt it becomes as little con-
fusing as the uniform rattling of hum
dreds of saunders in the main room of
the Western Union Telegraph Company
is to the operators who spend their work
days in that equally bewilderings babel.
OF this noise in the Board room of the
Exchange it is said that person who is
accustomed to hearing it can, tell by its
tone exactly the condition of the emarket
at any given time by listening outside
the building in New street, on which the
windows of the Board room open. When
there is what is known as ssbu1l mar
ket,'' when values are rising, the tone is
high and sharp and the brokers seem to
be screaming, whereas, when there is
bear movement depressing
the values the tone is low and deep and
would be described as the united sound
of thousand men hoarse from colds
N. ?. Cor. San Francisco Chronicle.
The following is an extract from
one of Emerson's letters, written in
March, 1888: "And what if it be Ma.
pies! 1t is only the same world of cake
and ale, of man, and truth, and folly.
r H. =