The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-01-26
WALL STREETS "ARGOT."
WHERE THE BEWILDERING SLANG
OF BROKERS ORIGINATED.

World - Some of the Leaders in
Brokers Slang in the Old Times and
To-Day-D-ew and the Slangw hang
ers-The Old and the New Guards
Wall Street Declining?
CCopyright)
NEW YORK, Jan. 25.-"No use cunning
in that quarter, tell you. II you've been
caught short, best say nothing about it, IN
less you want to get the razzle-dazzle"
These emphatic remarks were made by
one of the You Guard of Wall street to
last evening.
"But it's an off market, anyhow"
mot much it isn't I've had a pointer,
and couple of days will see things sN i'm
ming; see if they don't. There won't be a
break in P. & o. in a month. But it's
going to be quiet; there won't be any twist
ing about it. It's gilt-edged, and the fellows
who are in have a cinch on it,"
| To the uninitlated, the dialect of Wall
street, of whicn the language just quoted is
| a fair example, is one of the marvels of the
metropolis. In the gallery of the stock ex-
change, in the leading brokers' Offices on
| the sidewalk among the curbst ne opera
I
hears the peculiar, bewildering jargon. 1t
has a flavor Of "shop" about it, a racy,
| breezy technique that is found nowhere
| else. One VINO has never been down among
the bulls and bears might as well attempt
| to "rakker Romanes" with gypsy, and
hope to make himself understood, as TO hold
| parley with busy broker to whom the
street and its dialect has become almost a
! second nature. Even clever financiers who
are not frequente of the exchange some
| times find themselves at sea in attempting
| to C pc with this flood of slang that has
been increasing in volume ever since the
stree became an established institution.
| Philologists have never stopped to inves-
| tigate the origin of this curious development,
although, spreading from Wall street, the
slang of finance has invaded every city in
the union wherever there is an exchange or
stocks are dealt in as business In the
| early days when the speculative markets
were in the hands of a few bold and aggresss-
i've pioneer spirits as the California
gold field was forty years ago
excitement found a means of ex
preston in slang. From 1874. when
the board of brokers was organized
till 1922, when Jacob Little, the "Great
Bear OF Wall street." opened a small office
in basement and forthwith began to show
men how to make and unmake fortunes in
an hour, the financial fraternity was rather
| ".
| thing was orderly; curbstone brokers and
panics were unheard Of corners, pools aud
| combinations-those furerunners of disas-
| ter-were unknown. Little revolutioniz9 ed
ali this His bold operations made him the
leader in every speculative movement. He
was the frs American to be
called Napoleon of Finance"
the first to be dubbed a
railroad king and he was the father, if
not the actual inventor, of the slang phra-
seology of finance. Terms were Invented
to describe the new system of operations he
introduced, ald these multiplied as the
tricks and devices of the new system iu-
creased. "a break" in the market-a
thing till then unknown-expressed the
downward movement where stock had been
| buoved up by artificial means according to
| Littles system; ''co gering his shorts de-
scribed the dilemma of a broker who, on
| a rising market, bought where he
could to protect himself o. the day Of de-
livery of his contracts; loading up" and
"uuloading," "beari e the market, 'long"
and short" with other brokerage phrases
that have survived till now, we're among
the slang of Little's day and gensatiol
Like many others, his system failed at the
critical moment and his vast fortune,
quickly made, was as speedily swept away
| on three different occasions. His dyi z
exclamation was: 81 am gone up; who is
with mes" 1t might be construed as char
| acteristic.
The panic of 1887, "Black Friday" of 1869
and the great pa tic of 1873 all contributed
heavily to the dialect of the speculative
| class After each period of unusual excite
| ment the slang became more pronouA ced.
| The greatest contributor of all was the ex-
citing period of the civil war, from which
| sprung a remarkable list of word-coinages
tnat have been a hundred times discussed
! fha an no on
change 1t is impossible to trace the
history of Wall strest slang without,
in a measure, following the history
of the street itself. just how much Of
this peculiar verbiage of finance was
contributed by men like Henry Keep, "the
| Silent" who from poorhouse boOtblack,
| beca ne tremead )uS speculator, and VINO
pinched all his talk into monosyllables; how
much from antique-favored jokers like
| Uncle Rufus Hatch, who would jest in the
face Of disaster; from old Commodore Van
| derOilt, with his mouth full of stentorian
oaths while talking business; from Colgate,
| from Morrissey, and from all the motley
| elements that have been attracted by the
| glamour of Wall street gambling, would
| be difficult to estimate. On the movement
of their lips hundreds of operators have
| hung from time to time, and single word
| or syllable-"a pointer" no matter how
oddly or vulgarly expressed-passed as
| the current coin or the exchange
| Brokers who had lost standing or
credit by unfortunate speculation, came to
be known as the "larle ducks" and
''snipes" of the street, they were distin-
gulshed from the ''lambs" who we're ver
daut outsiders who had taken flyer" and
lost. "Goslings" were the younger brokers
who had not got crippled early in the race.
''To gun stock" was to attempt by every
possible means to produce break in that
particular security. "Kite-hying" was a
risky sport, INDUCED by brokers who
had outrun their credit and were
attempting to negotiate worthless paper, or
to borrow on wild cat" stock. "C1llat-
eral" was an invention of Drew, and sigui-
fed anything possessing value III Wall
street, and which was given in bond for a
loan. A good delivery" meant that the
broker who had ldert }ken to deliver
stocks at certain time, found himself ia
shape to do so at the proper date; bad
delivery" was just the reverse. "Hypoth-
ecating" stock was to place it in anybodys
hands as security for a loan. Caught
long" is where the MARKET drops and a
broker is caught with a falling stock
'caught Short describes the fix of one
who mas sold ahead and finds the market
rising so quickly that he cannot settle ex-
cept at heavy loss. "a sick market" is
when brokers generally hesitate to buy-an
outcome of over-speculation. "a swim ming
market" is just reverse. IAN off market"