The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1889-06-01
WALL STREET IN FICTION.
Notes Made by Charles Dudley Warner
In the Course Of ga Little Jour-
ney In the World.'' 80
THarper's Magazine for June. ]

Iuarper's Magazine for June.
| One of the most curious and inter
esting places in the world is a Cham
Der in the business heart Of New HOrl
Lit that scene Of struggle and passion
can be said to have q heart-situateC
midway where the .carrents Of eager.
uess to acquire ,he ,nuney of Other
people, not TO make it, ceaselessiy meel
aud dash against each other. II We
could suppose there was web cover
ing this region, spun by the mcst a!erl
and busy Of men to catch those less
alert and more productive, here in this
Chamber would sit the ingenious spi.
ders. Buttbe analogy fails, for spiders
do not prey upon ench other. ScieD>
fists say that the human system has
two nerve canters-one in the brain 10
which aud frOm which are telegrapheti
all movements depending upon the
will, and another in the small Of the
back, the centre of the involuntary
operations Of respiration, digestion,
and 30 on. 1t may be farcitul 10 sup
pose that in the national system
Washington is the one nervous centre
and New York the other. And yet it
does sometimes seem that The nerves
and sanslions in the small CT the back
In the commercial metropolis act auto
matically aud without any visible .in-
tervention OF intelligence. For all that
their operations may be as essential as
the other, in which the will power
sometimes gets into @ deadlock, and
sometimes telegraphs thu most eccen-
trio and incompreheusible orders.
Puzzled by these contradictions, some
philosophers have said that there may
be somewhere outside Of these two ma
terial centres another power that
keeps affairs moving along with some
steadiness. 4....
This noble Chamber has large
irregular area of floor space, is very
high, aud has running round three
sides narrow elevated gallery, for
which spectators can look down upon
the throng below. Upon raised dais
at one side sits the presiding genious of
the place, who rules very much as Ju-
piter was supposed to govern the
earthly swarms, by letting things run
and occasionally launching a thunder
bolt. High up one side, in an O!ym-
plan seclusion, away from the noise
and the strife, sits u Board, calm as
fate, and panoplied in the RESPONSE
bility of chance, whose function seems
to be that of switch shifters in their
cubby at network of
intersectfons-to prevent col
lisions.
AT both ends of the floor and along
one side are narrow rallied off spaces
full of clerks figuring at desks, of tele-
graph operators clicking their
of messenger boys arriving
and departing in haste, of unprivileg-
ed operators uervously watching the
scene and waiting tho chance of q
word with some one on the floor;
through noiseless swinging doors men
are entering and departing every mo-
in hurry, men with
anxious faces, conscious that the fate
of the country is in their hands. On
the floor itself are five hundred, per-
haps q thousand, men, gathered for
the most part in small groups about
little stands upon the summit of which
is a rallying legend, talking, laughing,
screaming, good-uatured, indifferent,
excited, running hither and thitber in
response to changing figures in the
squares on the great
wall opposite; calm, cynical one mo-
ment, the next Violently agitated,
shouting, gesticulating, rushing to-
Rether, shaking their fists in tumult
Of passion which presently subsidies.
The swsrms ebb and flow about these
little stsnds-bees, not bringing any
honey, but attracted to the hive where
1t is rumored most honey Is to be had.
BY habit some always stand or sit
about particular hive, waiting for
the show of comb. By-and.by there
is stir; the crowd thickens; one
beardless youth shouts out the figure
"one~haIf'; another howIs, "ihree-
eighths," The first one mods. 1t is
done. The electric wire running up
the stand quivers and takes the figure,
passes it 10 aTthe other wires, trans-
mits ii to every Cflice and hotel in the
city, to all the "iickers'' in ten thous-
and chambers and "bucket-shops" and
Offices in the republic. Suddenly on
the bulletin-boards in New Orleans,
Chicago, San Francisco, Liverpool, sp-
pear tho mysterious ",hree-eighths,"
eIectrifying the watchers OF these
boards, who begin 10 jabber and ges.
ticufate aud "transact business IT is
wonderful.
What induced the beardtess young
man to make this sinvestment' in
ethree-eighths," who can teli? Per-
haps he had heard, rs he came into
the room, that the Secretary Of the
Treasury Iyas pninv fn mako /. IL n(