The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-23
TAKING 4 PEEK
 INTO WALL STREET The Many and Varied Types of Spectators One Sees There HOW A BIG BANK IS RUN
The Tendency Is To Put Specialists at the Head of Each Department. Much Red Tape and Intri-
 cate Bookkeeping.
BY sEwELL HAeeARD.

ANCW LOtks ICDIQeIIy 2a.-loPeGldiJ- Most of the ills of this oountry-all the financial ills-are laid to Wall street. Newspapers make circulation by pound- ing Wall street and politicians ride into office by lanbasting Wall street Just now an effort is on foot to suppress Wall streets biggest enterprise, stock gam bling.
 And yet with all this talk there arc many phases of Wall street that the general public knows little about. That is why am going to make of this article a little excursion into Wall street.
 The outsider in considering Wall street is at once struck with it's many types of men. Even Dickens never conjured up such curious types as one may find in the customers rooms of brokers of- fees in the back rooms of bucket shops and in the cafes and restaurants. A brok- CTS office is an interesting place in it. self.
 Here is a brokerage firm doing bus mess on the Stock Exchange" says a writer who was telling of his experiences for the Van Norden Magazine, sone mem Der, or perhaps two, active on the board, another looking out for the office require ments. There is @ comfortable customers room, with stock tickers, easy chairs, gossip tickers and on the table litera- ture of a kind calculated to interest and entertain the casual wayfarer or cus- toner.
 'The office member is genial, plausible, confidential full of wise saws and se- crets of vast importance exuding knowl- edge of prospective movements, clear as to the significance of the news and re- luctantly intimating by his very denals and his hestancy that he is in close 4rafa
 "Candor sits enthroned on his fore head there is total disregard of self interest in his advice and in his pocket is the memorandum of his margin clerk, showing how much further leeway his customers may have before he calls them. The best type of office man is the one who can keep full margins and at the same time impress his clients with the belief that he is the earthly manifesto ton of their guardian angel.
 But the customer himself is the more interesting type. He has many varieties from the top hat and frock coat of the pseudo plunger to the commonplace slouch and bourgeois tweeds of the 100 share men. His facial characteristics are many, his expressions reflecting the tale of the ticker as told in his own account, his purpose to beat game that is as crooked as thimblerigging. and to which the old-fasldoned trick O the loop is as square as euchre at a e. Il social"
 Of spectators theHe are many and va ried types. There is the speculator from the west, who is always spectacular. He talks loud to keep himself before the public. and under cover of his fiimsy reputation for breeziness and. honesty he manages to get ahead by assiduously looking out for No 1 and sacrificing his friends.
 Then there is the gambler-the man who is running a faro game and a roulette wheel somewhere in the Tenderloin. He is nearly always beaten, but he comes back to try his luck again. But don't forget the horsy trader-the flashy per- E son who will always tell you after cer- tain stock has advanced or decreased that he knew it was going to happen.
 Most interesting of all Is the chart player. He has a note book in which he jots down each day, by means of dia- grams, the fluctuations in certain stocks. He speaks in mysterious way of double tops" and double bottoms''; tells you how it is certain that when a stock crosses the high price of a previous upward movement it will score further sub stantial advance. The chart is positively an oracle to him. Deiphic, it is true, for there are few who thus keep a record of fortunes prankS, who show any out ward and visible signs of fortunes fa- vors.
 There are as many distinct types among
 
 smaller fry. There Is the exceptional type, the free-handed plunger who plays for the excitement it affords, occasionally wins, but takes it for granted that the balance will be on the debit side at the end of the year. He is the prey of those who have schemes of all kinds to pro- mote, the object of tender solicitation on the part of brokers, who see big com missions In his disregard of conventional methods and lack of conservatism.
 Then there Is the quieter type who is unknown to the public, who trades heavi- ly and takes either his losses or his win nngs without comment. Usually he is a. close observer of conditions and in touch with the so-called big interests.
 variation of this type is the wealthy trader who Is identified with some issue or security traded in on the board. He has many accounts, but he is secretive and sharp-wtted.
 He will promise anything, he is espe- cially conciliatory and a good fellow to newspaper men, and he is always at pains to enthuse over any visitor who can serve him. But it Is an unwholesome type, the kind that makes white light history, and the association of whose name with any enterprise is enough to blacklist it in the eyes of square traders.
 Another type of speculator is the pol itician or officeholder-the man who is high in legislative counsels He is usually successful because he has means of ob- taining advance information.
 One of the very real characters in the financial districts is the professional oper- ator He plays first violin in the orches- tra of the 'big interests" Sometimes he causes discords, but nowadays he is usually found in thorough accord with his director.
 The real professional has large re- sources, either cash or credit. He makes study both of actual and technical con- ditions and rarely does he stand for se- were punishment if he finds his deductions wrong. It is curious, but nevertheless a fact that the best of the professionals are more accurate in their reading of the market from the tape than they are in determining it's character when they take their places on the floor of the exchange.
 Some of them possess peculiar powers of divination, apparently, that enable them to read in the tangled figures of the tape the subsequent movement of a stock. Seated in brokers office they use only their calm judgment, but on the floor they 1 are a center of interest, their own opera tions complicate the market and the ego- tism that is innate in every operator irl- pels larger plays than he would ordi- | narily make.
 We must not leave out the clergymen who are the most gullible type of specu- lator. They will swallow most any kind of bait that is offered them. There are many women speculators, but as rule brokers do not seek their orders.