The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-05-30
WALL STREET IN FICTION.

WALL STREET IN FICTION.
Notes Made by Charles Dudley War
ncr, I'm the Course Ot"A Llttle Jour-
ney In the World"
One of the most curious and interest
ing places in the world is Chamber in
the business heart of New York-if that
scene of struggle and passion can DE
said to have a heart-situated midway
where the currents of eagerness to &C
ouire the money of other people. not to
make it, ceaselessly meet and dash
against each other. II 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-
ductiye, 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 involun-
tary operations of respiration, digestion,
aud so on. 1t may be fanciful to sup
pose that in the National system Wash
ington is the one nervous centre and New
York the other. And yet it does some
times seem that the nerves and gangli-
ons in the small of the back in the com
mercial metropolis act automatically
and without any visible Intervention Of
intelligence. For all that, their opera
10 nepantia1 nc tho nfhpr
which the will power sometimes gets
into a deadlock, and incomprehensible
orders. Puzzled by these contradictions,
some philosophers have said that there
NAV be somewhere outside OF these two
material centres another power that
keeps affairs moving along with some
steadiness.
This noble Chamber has a large irreg-
ular area of floor space, is very highland
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 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
thunder-bolt. High up one side, in an
Olympian seclusion, away from the
noise and strife, sits Board, calm as
fate, and panopied in the responsibility
of chance, whose function seems to be
that of switch shutters in their window
ed cubby at net work of railway inter-
sections-to prevent collisions.
AT both ends of the floor and alopg
the side are narrow railed-off spaces full
of clerks figuring at desks, of telegraph
operators clicking their machines, OF
messenger boys arriving and departing
in haste, of unprivileged operators ner-
vously watching the scene and waiting
the chance of word with some one on
the floor; through nOiseless swinging
doors men are entering and departing
every moment-men in hurry, men
with anxious faces, conscious that the
fate of the country is in their hands. On
the floor itself are five hundred, perhaps
a 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-natured, Indifferent, excited, run
ming hither and thither in response to
changing figures in the checker-ooard
squares on the great wall opposite calm,
cynical one moment, the next violently
agitated, shouting, gestlculatlng, rush
ing together, shaking their fists in a
tumult of passion which presently sub
sides.
The swarms ebb and flow about these
little stands-bees, not bringing any
honey, but attracted to the hive where
it is rumored most money is to had. BY
habit some always stand or sit about
particular hive, waiting for the show of
comb. BY .and-by there is a stir; the
crowd thickens; one beardess youth
shouts out the figure lone half" anoth-
er bowls, "three-eights." 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 office and hotel in
the city, to all the "tickers" IN ten thou
sand chambers, and "bucket-shOps" and
offices in the republic. Suddenly on the
bulletin boards in New Orleans, Chicago,
San Francisco, Podunk, Liverpool, ap-.
pears the mysterious "three-eighths,
electrifying the watchers of these boards
who begin to jabber and gesticulate and
transact business" 1t is wonderful.
What induced the beardless young
man to make this "investment" in
"three-eights," who can tell Perhaps
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 need.
ed a little more iron; perhaps he had
heard that norther in Texas had killed
herd of cattle, or that two grasshoppers
had been seen in the neighborhood OF
Fargo, or that Jay Hawker had been OBJ
served that morning huirying to his bro
kers with a scowl on his face and his
hat pulled over his eyes, The young
man sJld what he did not have, and the
other young man bought what he will
never get
This is business of the higher and
almost immaterial sort, and has an ele-
ment of faith in it, and, as one may say,
belief in the unseen, whence it is char
acterized by an expression-' dealing in
futures" 1t is not gambling, for their
are no "chips" used, and there is no rou
lette table in sight, and there are no
piles of money or piles Of anything else.
1t is not a lottery, for there is no wheel
at which impartial men preside to in
sure honest drawings, and there are no
predestined banks and prizes, and the
man who buys and the man who sells
can do something, either IN the news
papers or elsewhere, to affect the worth
of the investment, whereas in lottery
everything depends upon the turn of the
blind wheel. 1t 10 one ofthe recognized
ways of becoming important and power
full in this world. The privilege of the
floor, seat az it is called in this temple
of the god Chance TO be Rich, is worth
more than any seat in the cabinet, 1t is
not only true that fortune may be
made here in day or lost here in day =,
but that a nod and wink here enable
people all over the land to ruin others or
ruin themselves with celebrity. The reIa
ton of the Chamber to the business of
the country is therefore evident. If an
earthquake should suddenly sink this
temple and all lis votaries into the bow
els of the earth, with all its nervousness
and all its electricity, it is appalling to
think what would become of the bust
ness of the country, -Hdrper'S Magazine
for June.
EUPEPSY.
This is what you ought to have, in
foo Won ,,,uat boVa - IN fttlly aninV iFa