The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-08-27
In the Chicago Wheat Pit.


George Aide Of Chicago writes: As on.
goes into the Board of Trade building from
Jackson street he brushes elbows with dis
tracted men going and coming and hear!
the distant roar of the traders
1t is roar something like the unendine
thunder of heavy machinery or the steady
| pounding of surf at night. 1t does not
cease. 1t lulls a little at times, as wher
machinery slows down. Again, 1t lifts and
RACES In a higher key, as when machinery
runs away-a controlling belt OF. But IL
never ceases.
1t rises more loudly as the visitor climbs
the stairway. The smaller and discordani
sounds come OFT Of the mass of noise.
As one comes into the gallery one is
struck by the myriad shouts and shrieks,
| imprecations, calls for help, defiant yeIIs,
entreaties
| All assail him at once and the dull roar
has become an undertone.
He has heard louder noises. but never
so many loud noises commingied with the
| tones Of human passions When he is
| caught in the crowd at the head Of the
stairway his ears Jingle from the assault:
| as they would not Jingle If the sounds were
| a mere babel. Before he has looked at the
| turbulent things below him he has felt the
| spirit Of battle
1t is a battle. truly. He may look down
into the dust and tumult of the fighting
without seeing the charges and counter
hcarges or recognizing the victory when
il comes, but he can see that it Is real war.
The floor on 'chane is as large as a bat
tie field and has its fighting centers.
There is a great open area lying under
a yellowish glare altering through a sky
light which seems to be a half mile over
head This area is loosely svarming with
men and boys, except at the battle centers,
where there is noise and crowding.
There are three pits" or huge wooden
bowls, and these are filled to blackness
with crazy men. One pit is so crowded that
the maniacs are spilled over the edge Of
tire bowl and out across the floor. 1t is the
wheat pit, and something has happened to
craze these few hundred men paced in and
around the wooden bowl.
Did you ever see fiies fighting in a close
trap? They never buzzed and leaped and
scrambled more wildly than do these men.
Loo at them. See the waving arms. OBJ
serve the flushed faces. Watch the man in
the thick Of the shriekng mob. He Will
die of apoplexy in a minute. See the whole
throng sway as one man lunges through
Why does every man shout? And what
does it mean when a frenzied man wig
giles his fingers at another and then writes
something in little book. even while four
other wild men are fighting over his Shout
ders?
Was there ever such bowling? Yet the
men have not tired themselves, for sudden
" the fury is doubled The shouts rise
to screeches OF frenzy and the pit leaps
and writhes with the lifted and waving
arms. How can such fierce and exultant
sounds be described? Think Of menagerie
of wild animals when II sees the raw and
bloody meat
What has happened? Has wheat gone
up a cent or has Il fallen a cent? The
visitor in the gallery may not know. He
simply sits looking down into this broad
eddy of humanity, with Its three twisting
whirlpools-seeing the fearful action and
hearing the dreadful noises, unable to re-
alize that there is any reason or sanity
behind such disorderly spectacle.
The wonder of II all Is that there can be
peace in the tempest In the very madness
of the pandemonium a meek old gentleman
will sit and read his newspaper.
Only twenty PAGES away some go of his
felIow-beings are having sepileptic convul-
sions.
Traders with futtering leaflets rush past
his chair shouting their orders. Messenger
boys dart back and forth.
The shutting feet the ticking OF dozens
of telegraph instruments. the great outcry
of the madmen. the battle cheers and the
unearthly bowling do not disturb his calm.
He is at ease with the world, Indifferent !
to the strifes of men.
Heaven bless the kind disinterested old |
gentleman,
He is making only $4,000 an hour from /
the antics in wheat