St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-05-30
WALL STREET IN FICTION.

lessly meet and dash against each
other. If we could suppose there
was a web covering this region, spun
by the most alert and busy of men to
catch those less alert and more pro-
ductive, here in this Chamber would
sit the ingenious spiders. But the
analogy fails, for spiders do not prey
upon each other. Scientists say that
the human system has two nerve
centres-one in the brain to which
| and from which are telegraphed all
movements depending upon the will,
and another in the small of the back
| the centre of the involuntary opera
tions, respiration, digestion, and so
on 1t may be fanciful to suppose
that in the national system Wash
ington is the one nervous centre and
New York the other And yet it does
sometimes seem that the nerves and
gangliOns in the small of the back in
the commercial metropolis act auto
matically and without any visible
intervention of intelligence. For all
that, their operations may be as eS-
sential as the other, in which the will
power sometimes gets into dead
lock, and sometimes telegraphs the
most eccentric and comprehensive
orders. Puzzled by these contradic-
tons, some philosophers have said
that there may be somewhere out
side of these two material centres
another power that keeps affairs
moving along with some steadiness
This noble Chamber has large ir-
regular floor space, is very high, and
has running round three sides a mar
row elevated gallery, from which
spectators can look down upon the
throng below. Upon a raised dais
at one side sits the presiding genius
of the place, who rules very much as
Jupiter was supposed to govern the
earthly swarms, by letting things
run and occasionally launching a
thunderbo1t High up one side, in
an Olympian seclusion, away from
the noise and the strife, sits a Board,
calm as fate, and panoplied III the re-
sponsibility of chance, whose fi1nc
ton seems to be that of switch shift
ers in their Widowed cubby at
network of railway intersections
to prevent collisions.
At both ends of the floor and along
one side are narrow railed-Off spaces
full of clerks figuring at desks, of tel
egraph operators clicking their ma
chimes, of messenger boys arriving
and departing in haste, of unprivileg-
ed operators nervously watching the
scene and waiting the chance of a
word with some one on the floor;
through noiseless swinging doors
men are entering and departing every
moment-men in a hurry, men with
of the country is in their hands. On
the floor itself are five hundred, per-
haps a thousand, men, gathered for
the most part in small groups about
little stands, upon the summit of
which is rallying legend, talking,
laughing, screaming, good-natured,
Indifferent, excited, running hither
and thither in response to hanging
figures in the checker-board squares
on the great wall opposite, calm,
cynical one moment, the next vio-
lently agitated, shouting, gesticulat-
ing, rushing together, shaking their
fists in a tumult of passion which
presently subsidies.
The swarms ebb and flow about
these little stands-bees, not bring
hive where it is rumOred most honey
is to be had. BY habit some always
stand or sit about a particular hive,
waiting for TIE show of comb. By
and-by there is a stir; the crowd
thickens; one beardless youth shouts
out the figure ''one-half;" another
bowls 'three-eighths The first one
mods. 1t is done The electric wire
running up the stand quivers and
takes the figure, passes it to all the
other wires, transmits it to every of
flee and hotel in the city, to all the
'tickers" in ten thousand chambers
and "bucket-shops" and Offices in the
republic Suddenly on the bulletin
boards in New Orleans, Chicago, San
Podunk, Liverpool, APP
pear the mysterious "three-eighths,'
the watchers of these |
boards, who begin to jabber and ges-
ticulate, and transact business" 1t |
is wonderful.
What induced the beard1ess young
man to make this investment" in
'three-eighths," who can tell? Per |
haps he had heard, as he came into |
the room, that the Secretary of the |
Treasury was going to make call |
of Elves perhaps he had heard that |
Bismarck had said that the French |
blood was too thin and needed a lit |
tie more iron; perhaps he had heard
that norther in Texas had killed a
herd of cattle, or that two grasshop
pers had been seen in the neighbour
hood of Fargo, or that Jay Hawker
had been observed that morning hur-
rying to his brokers with a scowl on
his face and his hat pulled over his
eyes. The young man sold what he
did not have, and the other young
man bought what he will never get
This is business of the higher and
almost innateria1 sort, and has an
element of faith in it, and, as one
may say, belief in the unseen, whence
it is characterized by an expression
dealing in futures" 1t is not gam
bling, for there are no ''chips" used,
and there is no roulette table in sight,
and there are no piles Of money or
piles of anything else. 1t is not lot
terry, for there is no wheel at which
impartial men sit to insure honest
drawings, and there are no predes-
tined blanks and prizes, and the man
who buys and the man who sells can
do something, either in the newspa-
perS or elsewhere, to affect the worth
of the investment, whereas in lot
terry everything depends upon the
turn of the blind wheel. 1t is not
necessary, however, to attempt de-
ience of the Chamber 1t is one of
ways of becoming impor-
-ant and powerful in this world.
The privilege of the floor, a seat, as