BULLS AND BEARS

Evening Star, Issue 19792, 16 February 1928, Page 3

BULLS AND BEARS

THE STOCK EXCHANGE “ HOUSE ” WITHOUT WOMEN DIGNIFIED DIJEHABDS. _ The House, as understood round ; about Throgmorton street, is not the . spiky, Gothic pile by Westminster j bridge, nor yet Cardinal Wolsey's spacious foundation that hit. Aldate’s in Oxford. It is the bloc. Exchange, a vast, irregular finikin., , with tall pillars, a glass dome, aim I seats round the walls (writes “W.M.M. - ' in the ‘Graphic’). Its 5,000 members may be classified in many ways; some of them much racier than the usual division into brokers and jobbers. The jobbers stand there all the morning and afternoon. They lounge upon the seats and lean against the pillars, and as time hangs heavily upon their hands, they divert themselves as best they may. They roll paper into little pellets and throw them at their friends. On the slightest provocation they burst into cheering and song. The appearance of tlie sun, shining on one of its rare visits through the glass dome, or the entrance of King Fuad or of somebody in a funny waistcoat, rouses them to a state of wild enthusiasm and unbounded merriment. During the moments of intense business activity that occasionally sweep over the place like a blast ol wind, when the brokers have come trooping down to'buy and the jobbers arc out to sell, they call out in every variety of tone the names of those securities they have to sell. And very nice names lo shunt some of them are. Much has been made of the cries of Old London; but the cries of New Loudon, as heard in the House, are every bit as vocal and as varied. As the house grows less active and business decreases, so docs the noise become greater. Shouts, choruses, and riots occasioned by the appearance of somebody in the wrong kind of hat make the walls ring. But when they got down to serious business voices sink, tones become less strident and more earnest. Only the jobber goes on proclaiming his wares like a bookmaker giving the odds at Sundown Park. When 1 first went into the house 1 was somewhat stressed when a little man with a very red face snddeiily began to screech, ‘ Bisichi— Bisichi— Bisichi ” right into my startled ear. What on earth docs he want s' i asked my companion. . It was a great relief to hear that lie did not really want anything except to announce to the world in geneva! that he had certain stock for sale. THE BANK HATE. Twelve o’clock booms out from the steeple of All Hallows j it is ihuisday. Then another bell clangs across the House. Over a conspicuously-displayed board a light shows up the words “ Bank Rate.” There is a general rush toward the board—men elbowing and peering over one another's shoulders. A moment of tense silence happens. Then appear the words "No change.” The members breathe again, and the crowd disperses once more over the Hour of the building. . A careful observer will notice that the bank rate has aroused the greatest interest among a certain group of quietly-dressed individuals who have hitherto preserved, amid all the chorussinging, pellet-throwing, and shouting an air of unrudled dignity. The announcement once made, they relapse into the Olympian indifference from which they will not emerge until this hour next week. . ; These are the aristocrats of the Stock Exchange, the dealers in . gilt-edged securities. They do not cry their wares in the market, nor go about calling “ War Loan—War Loan—Wat Loan.” Together with a certain number of brokers, they constitute another of those classifications into which the House can be divided. They arc the minority who take things seriously always, and are proud of their calling, jealous of its traditions. They, are very respectable and substantial. To them the public come to learn how to. make oiic-cightli per cent, per annum, and save one-sixteenth per cent, of supertax, by changing one Treasury bond for another. They will not admit to having hoard of British Celanese, and the suggestion that gambling plays any part whatever in the transactions of the Stock Exchange rouses their virtuous indignation to exploding point. The vast majority of the live thousand, whom they arc convinced form an insignificant minority, they regard with lofty contempt. Yet it is this majority that gives the House its distinctive character. On certain points they are at one with the serious-minded few. Both camps are equally jealous of the,traditions of the House; both regard advertising, ami being born in Bulgaria, Germany, Turkov, and such portions of the tenner Austro-Hungarian Empire as did not change their allegiance half-way through the war, as a crime debarring a man from membership jf the House.

They regard it as tlieir prerogative, assuming them to bo brokers, not to deal so oxacti ugly for a client that the jobber loses money over the transaction. Both sections laugh scornfully at tho idea of opening on Saturday, and are indignant with tho minors for being so unpatriotic us to resent working longer hours. Both uro horrified at tho thought of coming down in a howler hat, although both arc equally comfortable in a silk hat and a lounge suit. TALKING SHOP. But in matters not relating to Stock Exchange morality tho majority differ widely from their more sedate mentors. They are the oldish and youngish men who make the West End and Lo Touquet hum when times are not too had. Generous, off-handed, not always overburdened with a very great knowledge of their job, they arc perfectly bona lide, even when they have forgotten what they told a client twenty-four hours ago. It is these, and nob the others, who lay down tho law and are respectfully hoard whenever they choose to do so. They will assure you solemnly (“beneeu you and me and Dreyfus, old man ”) that they have seen some marvellous buying of Celanese and- they can give the fraction down to one-sixteenth (hut for heaven’s sake do not ask them what the big figure is). They stand about tho House in small groups making unrecorded bargains by word of mouth—bargains always faithfully observed—earnestly talking shop, or telling rather futile stories, till, if they arc brokers, the flash of their light upon tho wall tells them that they are needed elsewhere. Along the wall, on their stools, sit tho tall waiters. The Stock Exchange waiter is one of the characters of the City of London. In his long blue coat with , brass buttons he is more dignified and Olympian than the serious member himself. The tone in which he calls the name of a member (surname, no prefix) who is wanted would do credit to the toast-master at the Guildhall. HAMMERED ON ’CHANGE. It is the senior waiter, also, who fulfils other and more serious duties. The fall of his hammer sends an expectant thrill across the House, and there is an excited silence as he proclaims in the set formula that some member is unable to meet his obligations. Then, indeed, a stranger is present in the House—a stranger who can never be hustled out of the building to the cry of fourteen hundred throats. Tragedy is a familiar visitor to the Stock Exchange in hard times. • It is impressive to watch how the average member will Jake his heaviest

loss with a. smile, just as he _ will accept his most sensational gains without cliplaying emotion. The House makes a. man a philosopher or a sportsman, according to his temperament. Were I a member of the committee I should inscribe over the door, not tiic words graven at tho entrance to the inferno: “Abandon hope all ye that enter here,” hut the lines of an older poet: “ Acquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem ” (“ Bo yon of equal cheer when things go wrong”). Tho market is over by 4 o’clock, and tho House closes down then. Many members unublo to shake off the atmosphere prolong the business in Throgmorton street, where a miniature Stock Exchange may ho seen by the passer-by. Tho atmosphere of gambling is a contagious one, and it is not easy to live in it all day and then shake it off all at once.