Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1901-08-30
STOCK DEALING BY CABLE.
How the specui.tor Gains Time by
Being Three Thousand Miles Away.

How the Speculator Gains Time nv
Being Three Thousand Miles Away.
IL is one OF the most amazing OF
modern miracles, said stockbroker.
that a man can mere quickly purchase
and sell stocks at distance OF 1000
miles than man ia Fleet street can
operate on the London Stock Exchange.
q quarter of an hours walk away.
1t is this. 1 had almost said fatal.
facility that has enabled so many Eng
fish spectators to take a hand in the
recent American boom, when the loss
Of minute might mean the winning
or losing OF small fortune.
You would think that when stocks
and shares are fiuctuating wildly many
times within an hour 1t would be sheer
madness for any one in another conti-
nent to have anything to do with them.
but with such marvellous rapidity are
messages transmitted NOWADAYS by
cable that transaction can be COM
pleted In Wall street. New York, al
most as quickly as In the London Stock
Exchange by broker on the spot.
Suppose have an order to buy f1O.-
600 worth OF Illinois Central. The pur-
chase Is completed within a couple of
minutes of handing in the message in
Shorter's court, and 1 can receive a
reply within five minutes, n marvellous
feat when you consider that the double
message has travelled COCO miles.
AS you may imagine, these messages
are reduced to the smallest possible
dimensions. In fact. cablegram pur-
chasing, say, 100000 of stock will
probably consist of three or four words
only. with the time OF dispatch and a
single letter to serve as name and ad-
dress Of the receiver.
These messages are dispatched with
literally lightning speed by n highly
skilled band Of cablists, the picked men
of the army Of operators, who must not
only be exceedingly expert cabllsts, but
unfailingly accurate in transmission,
for an error might mean loss of thou
sands Of pounds. 1t says much for
their skill and care that mistakes are
very rare indeed.
There are three rival cable companies
In London, all almost equally expert
and reliable. one British, one French
and the third American. From 3 %. m.
which means 10 a. IN. In New York.
messages pour into these offices ut the
rate of many hundreds an hour and are
flashed with inconceivable rapidity
over the wires from London via Ire
land and Canada TO New York. the ac-
tual transmission over 5000 miles of
wire only taking a single minute And
quickly as these messages flash and fly
westward under the Atlantic other
messages are flashing from New York
to London over the same wires without
any possibility of getting In each
others way.
as many as 500 messages are often
dispatched in an hour and between
1000 and 3,o00 in day. and almost as
many are received in return. recording
their contents on the almost endless
serpent OF paper" which streams from
the receiving machine.
Even at 1 shilling n word Il is possi-
bic to spend immense sums on cabling.
n single firm often paying the cable
companies as much as 1000 or $500 in
week, and perhaps it Is no exagger-
alton TO say that during the recent
boom In American rails the receipts
OF the three cable companies were not
less than 10000 a week.-London Tit
Bits.