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

cart NettAufhnts IUo FViS' -
Precisely at 10 every business morning
a hveried attendant, carrying a gong
steps upon tho floor of the New York STOCK
Exchange and beats a ~resounding tattoo.
The first note is a call 10 arms.
Before its echo has died away hundreds
OF traders with their scorte. aids and mes
sengers are struggling in a great seething
mass. The same signal has
been carried 70 thousands OF ofices-the
money world Is awake.
Continuously for the next five hours
the kings, hirelings, servants and slaves
Of finance wage fierce battle. just 1900
seconds, any one Of which may spell ruin,
and the volume Of business requires that
each tick OF the 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 mny be content 20 wait
for is morning paper. The Wall Street
man demands the latest financial noSs
OF the entire world at intervals of SECONDS
only.
The financial news service under his
pressure has reached a perfection little
short of marvellous. The news Is tele-
graphed over a variety Of tickers directly
from the floor OF the Exchange 20 thou
sands Of Offices. II Is talked over telephone
wires with continuous hve-hour connec-
tons, or II Ia 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
10 notice the swarms Of small boys clutch
ing handfuls Of papers and usually on q
dead run. They tumble Unexpectedly out OF
Easements, disappear in an instant through
the d%oorways 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
famous financial news slips To the offices
Of the market operators.
In normal times they deliver an edition
every ten minutes During financial
panics OF other excitement editions are
sven more frequent.
The ten edition-an-hour newspaper IL
| 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 ths briefest
possible form. and ia rushed 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 70 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 a day IL considerable.
The sheets give the news more In detail
than the tickers. They are mean 10 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 comment
on the money and exchange markets.
The newsboys, usually about fifty strong,
line up before the little presses as the time
for the edition approaches. The bulletins
futter 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 run
The time Of their exit and return Ia taken
TO a second. Wages are advanced accord
ing to these records.
matter 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 we'll organized strike on the part OF
these newsboys. were it To come unex-
pectedly. would be felt more o. less seriously
: III H. -ra,t financial axphapuAa of tba
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
tributine the news are usually clogged
and are far behind the actual financial
times. SO for a few brief minute the
financial world Of Wall Street may be said
TO hang upon the alert boys.
Incidentally they stand an excellent
chance OF promotion. II is possible that
some Of the great fnanciers of the future
are at present standing in line before the
little buzzer presses.
The little ticksrs 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 dileT NH'I dnIloulltftiifIAb'
During financial psnics the market AT
times becomes so active that the tickers
find themselves an hour or more behind
the news. The stock ticker has beer
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 n common centre, either on the floor
/ 81 the Exchange or some point H. direct
communication with Il. A single operator
seated before n typewriter writes upon a
thousand she"ts in every lection Of tho
| city at the same instant Of time.
The number Of Stock Exchange t%icters
IL restricted and many ingenious d, vices
are used to repeat the cf7c'a! figures with
| the least possible loss Of time. To he sure,
the figures may ia repeated over other
| tickeIs, and & ere are several such services
for sGle. But his. however nImhly done.
entails the loss OF two or three minutes
at best.
! nv the time the belated figures arrive
an active stock is likely TO have fuctua,ed
H. --N LN