Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1882-07-20
A CALLER
Something About Charley stiles,
Who Was Killed in Chicago.
Louisville Commercial.

WV - OnASN6Ot oNA0 q WOlA
known Louisvillian yesterday, Il
suppose | would be eligible as a witness
in the case of Italian Efie, the girl
who murdered Charley Stiles"
why SOP" asked a Commercial
reporter who was present.
well, | happened to hear her make
some threats against him one evening
at the theater not long since. | knew
Stiles very well, and knew a number
OF that throng of fast young men who
operate on the grain market, and make
and lose immense sums. He is only
one of a number of the same kind of
men, under the surface of whose
apparently business like lives runs a
current of desperation and a carefully
concealed history of fast living that &C
any moment may end in a tragedy as
it did in the ease of poor Stiles. He
was brighter than any of the others,
however, and was really a wonderfully
clever and capable man. There is not
another man in America who could
have filed the position he did. You
have read that he was the best caller
in America, but you do not know what
stock. board calling is. Every day at
IL o'clock he took his stand on the
platform of the grain board with
hundreds of men around him. At l
o'clock pandemonium begins. One
man will call out that he has so nan
bushels Of a certain wheat to sell at a
certain price. Immediately the offer is
accepted by some one else in the
crowd These offers and calls are
made like lightning, and the effect is
pandemonium. Well, it was Stiles
duty to call the name of every man
who made an offer and every man who
accepted, and the conditions. and his
announcements we're taken down by
three short hand writer's. Stiles knew
every man and every voice in that
excited crowd, and every sale was re-
corded as quickly as made. lie was as
cool, and his head as clear. as
machinery, and it was a to find an
error in two hours work of it. .
His work began at | and ended at
3, most frequently at 2. For that n
hours work every day he received
$4,000 a year, and told me at one time
that he was going to demand $4,000.
No two men could do what he did. 1t
will be impossibleFo FIJI his place"
Salary was scarcely an object to
him, remarked a ~bystaader.
No, because his money was gone as
quickly as it was made. You can have
no idea of the extravaganza of the
young grain gamblers. Sometimes in
a week a man will clear $4,000 or
$4,000. He then r%etires from the
deal a few days with some friends to
spend it. How does he do it2 Oh, as
Stiles did-on women, cards, faro,
wine, and in impossible caprice. They
60 out and buy up some gilded palace
of sin and hold high carnival for daya.
In a few days all the money is gone,
and the speculstor comes back to the
board. The Owl Club in Chicago is
made up Of these young fellows"
did you know Stiles woman"
No, but | have seen her. She was
a most beautiful woman, with black
hair, brilliant black eyes, a fac figure,
a throat that was as transparent and
fair as marble. She was the perfect
type OF the woman that sets the world
OF men by the ears. One evening !
went to the theater with a middle aged
friend Of mine, and Madeline came in
with another woman and sat next to
me. My friend was much annoyed
aud told me in a whisper that she had
threatened to kill him because he had
advised Stiles to leave her and behave
himself. She recognized him, and be-
gan talking to the woman with hel
about Stiles. She said she was goinl
to kill him that some morning she
intended to get a hand organ and
monkey aud 20 down to the Board O.
Trade and show the members the Ital
ian woman that Stiles was treating 81
badly. She made all kinds of wilC
threats about him, and they were evi
IDENTIFY intended for me to hear anC
tell my friend, who was expected Il
tell Stiles.
well, Stiles was told Of them, an,
he laughed at it. But she finally di,
her work. and did it we'll"