Year: 1873

"Suppose we take a look at the me-
nagerie % suggested my Wall street
friend.


= ssThe menagerie? Where is it ?''


just up the street. We sometimes
call it the bear garden, or the lunatic
asylum, for q change.


By either of these names, it seems,
the New York Stock Exchange is more
familiarly known in the region of bulls
and bears than by its proper one. A
stranger, entering at a time of excite
ment in the stock market, would GER
tainly consider the last name the most
appropriate. At such time, downright
madness reigns supreme. The scene
presented is one of such c!amor, con-
fusion, furious gesticulation, and wild
surging and swaying of the crowds of
brokers on the floor, that a person wit
Messing it for the first time might very
naturally regard the roaring, hustling,
believing throng as a maSs-meeting of
violent lunatics.


Standing in the gallery provided for
the public, and looking down upon the
three or four hundred men who struggle
and shout and scramble below, the
stranger may well wonder what all the
tumult is about, and whether any real
business can be done in the midst of
such mad confusion. It seems impossi
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other. They are scattered in swaying
groups over the floor of the large cham
ber, and almost every man in each groud
appears to be In desperate alteration
with his neighbor. A hundred hands
are shaking violently before hundred
faces hundred throats are roaring as
though their owners were SO many
screaming dervishes and, to make the
deafening din still greater, squads of
well-grown boys rush hither and thither
between the groups, calling brokers by
name in the highest and shrillest key
their voices can command. Surely, no
bedlam ever presented more turbulent
scene, or one more dazing or bewilder-
ing to an unaccustomed mind, than may
be witnessed in the New York Stock Ex-
change when the excitements of field
day stir up the spirits of the bulls and
bears.


Strangers visitingth the Stock Exchange
always express surprise at the youthful
ness of the men by whom the enormous
business of the place is transacted.
Hearing SO often of the money kings of
New York, and naturally picturing
to themselves solid-looking men, well
on in middle life, as the bulls and bears
of the great stock market, they are as
tonished at finding merely multitude
of young men. most of whom have the
appearance of clerks, and any one of
whom will, on the slightest provocation,
yell at an unknown visitor like Co
manche or Apache savage. The mag
nate of the street, who are the men we
all read of in the newspapers, are hardly
ever seen in the Exchange, and some
even are not members of it. They gen.
orally remain in the background, con-
coct their plans in little private offices,
and issue instructions to their various
brokers as a General issues orders to his
subaltern on a battle field. One of these
magnates may have half dozen brokers
employed in the Exchange at the same
time, without one of the six knowing
that five others are executing orders
from the same man that employs him.
It is by the secresy of their operations
that the leading bulls and bears achieve
particular success and, in order that
there shall be no leakage of informa-
tion, they keep all their plans and pur-
poses to themselves. The whole num-
ber of brokers who have the privilege OF
trading in the Exchange is about one
thousand, while the number of opera
tors recognized as leaders probably does
not exceed twenty-five OR thirty. These
are the captains who organize and con-
duct campaigns the others are therank
and file who do the fghting-bellowine
and goring, or growing and squeezing,
according to their classification under
the signs of Taurus and Ursus.


A broker desiring to become a mem
ber of the Exchange is required to un-
dergo sort of inquisition before COM
mittee, in order that his qualifications
may be determined. He must also make
full statement of his business affairs,
and satisfy the committee that he is in
proper financial condition. If he
passes the examination successfully, he
must then purchase s seat in the Board,
or, In other words, pay for the privilege
OF membership. This privilege is an