Evening star., 1902-03-01
WALL STREET WAYS
Business There is an Exact
Science.
WONDERFUL MECHANIS
A SECONDS DELAY MAY MEAN
RUIN TO MANY.
Etrenuous Features of Daily Life in
the Financial Dis
trict.
IEnnNriUhf 1ln1 !

Copyright. 1902
Written for TIE Evening Star by F. A. Collins.
Precisely a 10 every business morning a
liveried attendant. armed with huge gong,
steps upon the floor of the New York stock
exchange and beats a resounding tattoo.
The first strdent note is veritable call to
arms. Before its echo has died away hum
dIeds of traders with their scouts, aids and
messengers are struggling in great seeth-
ing mass. The same signal has meanwhile
been carried to thousands of offices-the
money world is awake.
Continuously for the next five hours the
kings, hirelings, servants and slaves of
finance wage fierce battle. Just eighteen
thousand seconds. any one of which may
spell ruin, and the volume of business re-
Quires that each tick Of the clock shall be
record of something done. Nowhere else
in the world has the mechanism for carry
ing on business been reduced to such an
exact science.
Wall street is always feverishly impa-
tient to hear the latest news about itself.
The general public may be content to wait
for Its morning paper. The Wall street man
demands the latest financial news of the
entire world at intervals of seconds only
The financial news service under this pres
sure has reached perfection little short
of marvellous. The news is telegraphed
over a variety of tickers directly from the
floor of the exchange to thousands of Of
fees. 1t IS talked over telephone wires with
continuous five-hour connections, or 1t Is
printed in miniature newspapers and dis
tributed by hand at the rate of fifty or
more editions every five-hOur financial day.
Visitors to Wall street will scarcely fail
to notice the swarms of small boys clutch
Ing handfulS of papers and usually on the
dead run. They tumble unexpectedly out
OF easements, disappear in an instant
through the dOorways of great office build
ings to return shortly empty handed. These
are the most alert newsboys in the world.
They distribute by main boy power the ia
nous 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 edi-
tions are even more frequent.
Ten Hourly Editions.
The ten-edition-an-hour newspaper is or
Ranized much the same as an ordinary
news sheet, but with more dependence upon
the telegraph. telephones and various labor-
saving devices. The financial news is COL
Iected and condensed in the brefest posi-
BILE form. and is rushed to the typesetting
machines. In an incredibly short time the
form has been thrown into a buzzing little
press and the edition is being run off I'm
der ordinary conditions brief news items
can be written. edited. put in type and a
proof obtained within from three to four
minutes.
The form and size of the newspaper or
bulletin is sacrificed to speed The sheets
measure about five by nine inches. The
volume of news furnished in this form in a
day is considerable. they give the news
more In detail than the tickerS and are
more reliable. 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 indus
trial 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 500 a
minute. The boys grab them by the hand
ful and disappear through the nearest door
on the run. The time of their exit and re-
turn is taken to the exact second. Wages
are advanced according to these records. A
matter of twenty seconds or so in covering
route may be sufficient to distinguish a
good boy from slow one. More than 400
offices in the district are served in this way
at least every ten minutes.
well organized strike on the part of
these newsbOys, were It to come unexpect-
edly. would be felt more less seriously
on all the great financial exchanges of the
world. delay Of seconds in distributing
important news bearing upon the market
often causes serious fluctuations in prices
At such times the other means Of distrib-
uting the news are usually clogged and are
Tar behind the actual financial times So
Tor few brief minutes the financial world
or Wall street may be said to hang upon
the alert boys Incidentally they stand an
excellent chance of promotion 1t is poss-
Bile that some of the great financers of the
future are at present standing in line be-
fore the little buzzer presses.
What the Tickers Say.
The little tickers with their incessan mt
chatter and more or less inteligible HERO
glyphics are, of course, familiar These re-
port the quotations of stocks in thousands
Of offices in something less than a sninute
after their announcement. During finan-
cial pauics the market at times becomes SO
active that the tickers find themselves an
hour or more behind the news The stock
ticker has been elaborated of late in sew
eial ways. complicated mechanism
which prints the news by electricity on "a
continuous page or scroll is the most sue
cessful of these devices. All these contri-
ranceS are operated from a common cente er
either on the floor of the exchange some
point in direct communication with it. A
single operator seated before a typewriter
zion of the city at the same instant of time.
The number of stock exchange tickers is
restricted and many ingenious devices are
fesorted to to repeat the official figures with
the least possible loss of time. To be sure,
the figures may be repeated over other
eickers. and there are several such services
for sale. But this, however nimbly done
entails the loss OF two or three minutes at
best.
BY the time the belated figures arrive an
active stock is likely to have fuctuated a
dangerous distance. The best substit ute
for an Official ticker Is to repeat the figures
by word Of mouth over a telephone. the
circuit being kept open throughout the en-
tire financial day.
The Wall street man, during the finan-
ctal rush hours, requires more waiting upon
Shan royalty. A. the general action moves