The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-08-08
BOTTOM IS OUT.
Denizen's of London's wall
Street Desert in Numbers.
Price of a Seat on Change Drops
to $40.
FOR OVER TWO YEARS
Business Has Slumped and
There Is Not Enough for All.
Privilege of the Floor Surren.
dered by 1000 Persons.

London, Aug. s.-The recent hnan-
cial stringency has affected the STOCK
exchange of London most radically
over 200 members have resigned and
561 clerks have been withdrawn from
the floor of the house" The STOCK
exchange is situated in the center or
the richest square mile in the world
Directly across the street stands the
Bank of England and back of this the
lord mayors official residence, Man.
sion house.
Americans pride themselves on the
wealth of Wall street and while close
rival of the London financial center, IL
is generally conceded that the square
mile surrounding the Royal exchange
and the Bank of England IN Lonoon
is the richest square mile in the world
Imagine 200 members of the New
York exchange resigning in a rev
months Wall street would have sew
eraI kinds of fits and it would be gen.
orally conceded that the country was
going to smash, but IN sedate Ola Lon
don 1t has little effect and the news
papers have scarcely devoted para
graph to the withdrawal. This Is ac-
counted for by the fact that in Wall
street a seat on change is worth any
where from $4,000 to 100000 and
the membership is limited to 1,2OO
members. In London it has 5,O7S
members and although the seats were
nominally worth $500 they are at
present scarcely averaging $50 note.
Mother of Exchanges.
Still. the London stock exchange is
the greatest in size and variety or
dealings in the world, and, it must not
be forgotten, is the mother of all stock
exchanges. In Wall street American
-, oil
siyely, with fair sprinkling OF for
eign bonds. But in London stocks and
bonds and shares in every imaginable
enterprise in every country or mole
the corner of the earth, are bought
and sold.
MANY in any part of the far-fiung en-
hire of Britain, be it railroad. mine
or Industrial enterprise, which does
not attempt to list on the LONDON
stock exchange and which does not
market its shares in London Aod 10
these thousands of foreign companies,
in which British money Is invested
and the total is colossal
Yet for over two years business mas
so sIumped on London's wall
street" that there is not enough to go
round even after these recent whole
sale designations.
In the United States if man
wanted to deal on change he would
give his order to his broker, who
probably would execute 1t himself. III
you want co deal in England you go to
a broker. But he, in turn, has to go
to a jobber, and it is the jobber who
does the actual dealing. A client can
not approach jobber direct, but only
through a broker.
The membership of the exchange is
divided into jobbers and brokers, and
each member Is allowed three clerks
on the floor. So that there really are
some 10000 men who are directly en-
titled to the privileges of the house"
and the floor.
The wall street" section of Lon
don, as is the case in New York, is not
confined to single street. The
financial district is known as the
"City," and covers practically square
mile of Old London, and it is the
richest square mile in the whole
world This is on the authority of
Chairman Wagstaffe of the London
assessment committee who gives as it's
valuation the tremendous figures of
$12.5OO, 100000. The principal section
OF the financial district is. of course,
that Immediately surrounding the
stock exchange. There is Lombard
street, Cornhill Chapel court and
Shorter'S court
Each of these streets has its indi
viduality in the London world of fln-
ance In Threadneedle street is the
Lady of Threadneedle street." the GEN.
ter of the financial universe. In Lom-
bard street and Cornhill are the big
banks, the big financial agents, the Of
fees of the giants of gold. Throgmor-
ton street is the home of the jobber and
the curb market, Capel court of the
broker and Shorter's court of the
American market.
All around these streets, from Bish-
opgate to the monument, from Lon
don Wall to the Mansion House, are
scores of ancient little courts and
crooked little alleys, leading in and out
of main thoroughfares. The buildings
are honeycombed with offices of finan-
ciers of all degrees-the two-by- four
den of the petty crook to the palatial
whole-hoor suite of the investment
company or syndicate.
Not Good Reading.
The records of the stock exchange
are not good reading this year The
market price of share in the ex-
change is only $780, yet its par value is
$50, and the last dividend was nearly
s55. In the period of acute depression
the last two and a half years there
have been "a "hammerings." those
tragic occasions when a waiter OF the
exchange has mounted the rostrum