The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-03-02
SOME WALL STREET WONDERS
BITS or THE COMPLEX MA
CHINERY OF FINANCE.
Newspaper With Ten Editions an Hour
ID Feet-Footed Newsboys Wan
streets Enormous Population Push
cart Restaurants The Police Guard.

n Feet-Footed Newsboys- Wal
streets Enormous Population Push
cart restaurants Police Guard
Precisely at 10 every business morning
a hveried attendant. carrying a gong
steps upon the floor OF the New York Stock
Exchange and beats a resounding tattoo,
The first note is a call To arms.
Before its echo has died away hundreds
OF traders with their scoute, aids and mes
sengers are struggling in a great seethins
mass. The same signal has ineanw lille
been carried TO thousands OF oflices-th
money world Is awake.
Continuously for the next FIVE hours
the kings. hirelings, servant and slaves
Of finance wage fierce battle. just II ,0oO
seconds, any ono Of which may spell ruin.
and the volume Of business requires that
each tick Of tho clock shall be a record OF
something done. Nowhere else in the
world has the mechanism for carrying on
business been reduced to such an exact
science.
Wall Street is always feverishly impatient
to hear the latest now about itself. The
general public may be content 70 wait
for its morning paper. The Wall Street
man demands the latest financial noSs
OF the entire world at intervals of SECONDS
only.
Tho financial news service under this
pressure has reached a perfection little
short of marvellous. The news Is tele-
graphed over a variety Of tiokers directly
from the floor OF the Exchange 70 thou
sands Of Offices, II Is talked over telephone
wires with continuous hve-hour
tons. or It Is printed In miniature news
papers and distributed by hand at the rate
Of fifty or more editions every five-hour
financial day.
Visitors to Wall street will scarcely fail
30 notice the swarms Of mail boys clutch
ing handfuls Of papers and usually on q
dead run They tumble Unexpectedly out OF
Easements. disappear in an instant through
the doorways Of great Office buildings,
to return shortly empty handed. These
! are the most alert newsboys In the world.
They distribute by main boy power the
famou financial news slips To the Offices
Of The market operators,
In normal times they deliver an edition
every ten minutes. During financial
panics or other excitement editions are
even more frequent.
The Neutrality-suspicious. Newspaper Ia
organized much the same as an ordinary
news sheet, but with more dependence upon
the telegraph. telephones and various
labor-saving devices. The financial news
Ia collected and condensed in tho briefest
possible form. and ia rLshed TO the type
setting machines.
In a short time the form has been thrown
into a buzzing little press and the edition
Ia being nun of. Under ordinary con-
ditions brief news items can be written,
edited. put in type and a proof obtained
In from three TO four minutes.
The form and size of the newspaper
or bulletin are sacrificed to speed. The
sheets measure about five by nine inches.
The volume Of news furnished in this form
In q day 10 considerable
The sheets give the news more In detail
thar tho tickers. They are meant to be-
read at a glance In the rush of trading
hours. They give briefly studies in the
values Of securities, reports on railroad
and industrial properties and ommen
on the money and exchange markets.
The nswsboys. usually about fifty strong.
line up before the little presses as the time
for the edition approaches. The bulletins
iutter from the press at the rate Of 800
a minute. The boys grab them by tho
handful and disappear through the nearest
door on the nun.
The time Of their exit and return Ia taken
TO a second. Wages are advanced accord
ing TO theae records.
mater of twenty seconds or so In cover
ing a route may be sufficient TO distinguish
a good boy from a slow one. More than
400 Offices in the district are served In this
way at least every ten minutes.
A well organized strike on the part Of
these n~ewsboys, were It TO come une1-
pectedly, would be felt more or less seriously
on all the great financial exchanges Of the
world. A delay Of seconds in distributing
important news bearing upon the market
often causes serious fluctuations In prices.
Al such times the other means of dis
tributing the news are usually clogged
and are far behind the actual financial
times. So for a few brief minutes the
financial world Of Wall Street may be said
TO hang upon the alert boys.
Incidentally they stand an excellent
chance OF promotion. 1t is possible that
some Of the great inanciers of the future
are at present standing in line before the
little buzzer presses.
The little tickers with their incessant
chatter and more or less Ineligible hero
glyphics are. OF course. familiar. These
report the quotations OF stocks In thou
sands Of offices In something less than a
minute after their announcement
During financial panics the market at
times becomes 90 active that the tickers
find themselves an hour or more behind
the news. The stock ticker has been
elaborated OF late in several ways. A
complicated mechanism which prints the
news by electricity on a continuous page
or scroll is the most successful Of these
devices.
All these contrivances are operated
from a common centre. either on the floor
Of the Exchange or some point H. direct
communication with il. A single operator
seated before n typewriter writes upon a
thousand sheets in every section of tho
city at the same instant Of time.
The number Of Stock Exchange tickers Z
Is restricted and many ingenious a., vices
arc used TO repeat the official figures with !
the leas, p5s siblc loss Of time. To he sure, |
the Dpnrps NAV ha repaated over 9TH, 7