The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-04-26

k2GA -------------------- only look on enviously and regret their losses. It is the old old story in Wall 1 Street.
 Accumulation of Wealth.
 The distress through which the stock market has passed since early last au- l tumn has In no manner communicated it. self to the rest of the country. Elsewhere there Is a super-abundance of prosperity and an accumulation of wealth by the people that surpasses anything ever seen. The hurt here has fallen in large part upon the tens of thousands who accumulated fortunes suddenly by req son of the organization of great indus trials and the tremendous imitation that has accompanied this phenomenon. There are cases without number where people who had labored and struggled for many years in the possession of manufactur- ing establishments slowly developing their businesses who found themselves rich in quick assets almost within day. They obtained for their properties two, three, five and not infrequently ten times as much as they had held them to be worth and the experience dazed and bewildered them. It took an extremely level head to withstand such prosperity and the first impulse was to convert their stocks and bonds into cash, the next was to buy something else with that cash.
 The result was an interchange and re- interchange of cash for securities which brought to the stock market a sense of bouyancy never before witnessed and put prices to the highest attitudes on record. The last few months have wit messed the entire or partial extingush- ment of thousands upon thousands of these fortunes which lasted upon paper for only a few brief years. The country is full of men who enjoyed brief season of wild exhiliration in this magnificent center of action and then slowly found their way back to their former homes or else settled down here with such em- ployment or occupation as they might find
 The metropolis is full of men who count themselves poorer by 50. 75 and 90 per cent than they were year ago but who for all that may be as well fixed as they were when they first started on that orgy.
 New Stock Exchange.
 The dedication of the new Stock Ex- change was a great event in the finan- cial district The members of the exchange are glad to get back home. They have been cramped and uncomfort- able. The two years covered by the occupancy of the temporary quarters in the Produce Exchange have not been period of unalloyed satisfaction.
 Things have happened during that time which made supersttious traders believe that the old red brick building was hoodooed. Within two weeks after they took possession occurred the ter rible panic incident to the Northern Pacific corner President McKinlcy's assassination followed Then the copper corner collapsed involving loss of more than $100,000.000 Last but not least be- gan and eliminated the sensational de- cline In the general stock market, shrinkage represented in dollars and cents by more than $1, ,500 000,0O0. This sum approximates the actual shrinkage as shown by the high and low ranges. the former prevailing about the first of September, 1902 and the inside figures having been reached only a short time since. Hopeful members of the Stock Exchange believe that good luck will at- tend the early years of the occupancy of the new $7.00O00O temple of specula- ticn. They find ground for this expecta- tion in the promise of enormous crops and in the fact that there appears to be no serious break in the front of national prosperity.
 The action of Judge Sanford in modify ing the decision in the Northern Secur- ities case so as to enable the constituent companies to pay dividends to the holding company which in turn is to dis tribute the dividends among it's stock holders. had a distnctively soothing effect. It satisfied the timorous that the administration has no intention of at- tacking property but only to bring into line those who have been violating the law. Some of the radicals were against any modification of the decision and loudly demanded that its original terms be adhered to rigidly but the courts ruling that no vital interest was involved in the change and that the money earned