THE STOCK EXCHANGE AND THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 35, 9 February 1877, Page 4

THE STOCK EXCHANGE AND THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA.

Iffla take ths following from an ioter&ating letter > addressed to* the Australasian by its Philadelphia correspondent :— Every time visitors enter a batjk^ pr j* broker'sv office to ■" convert foreign gofd into United States currency (and .jo,, a ..country where most things are 50 per oent. above English P r fe9*.l_?M^MLto ;be done frequently), or the common room of an hotel (a veirydifferdot apartment from the inside b^^jf^jboiel 5 in Melbourne), they notice an automaton telegraph instrument from which paper tape runs intermittently £.1 day long, and falls in coils in'tb a waste- paper basket. If we examine tbe tape we find printed on it; in Rq«an capitals and figures, the last sales of shares and gold on the Stobk Exchange : ahd sometimes brief messages as to the progress of an election, or j: other items of public news. The inst^ment f wo hear, has become indispensable to bankers and brokers. By tho y information they obtain from the tape they regulate operations ia gold, publio securities, &c. When we go i-^ioabaak to get a draft on London converted into American .paper, the clerk refers tb the tape to ascertain the\ price of gold, and then begins his caleolations. . Pef haps before he has finished them the tape starts to run. He glances at it, and remarks «*• You were only just ia time. Gold has dropped a half per cent." This is satisfactory to you if not to the next customer, who waits patiently for the completion of your busiuese. Drafts on London, Bank of England notes and sovereigns oommand their full value in American gold. Bank of England notes are preferred to gold, tf we did a trade with New York or San Francisco which rendered it necessary for as to remit large sums of money to the States, dollars would in the same way fetch as high a price here as tbey do at home.. The amount of U.S. paper which £100 will . buy depends on the price of gold. Nominally it is worth 486 dollars, but if gold, which is always at a. premium, stands at 110, then the fair equivalent is 543 dollars, an increase of 10 per cent. No gold coin is current in tbe United States east of California— it is only to be seen in the bins of bankers and brokers. All transactions (save the payment of customs dues) are done in paper. The telegraph instrument seems to need no attention. Jt stands under a glass 'bell, and the tape runs freely from it. Whence does it receive its inspiration ? : , From the head-quarters of "the" Western Union .Telegraph Con - pany, New, York. The central businesa of ihis vast enterprise, which has erected 70,000 miles of wiro in the United State., is carried on in one of the loftiest buildings in Broadway, and the staff there numbers 200 men and women. This is the place whence the information ia distributed, but not where it is collected. We must follow the clue up to the Stock Exchange, in celebrated, narrow, crooked Wall-street. Mention has beea made on former occasions of the recognised right of the publio to enter ali public buildings. Nobody dispenses ordera of admission to 7 the Capitol, or the Treasury, or the Patent-office, or the City Waterworks. If we have a mind to yisit these places we shall meet with no obstructions at the door. Though the Stock Exchange is not a public institution in the same sense as tbe Capitol (or Houses of Parliament), the public may enter as spectators whenever they please. Foreigner naturally feel diffident when they find themselves iv any place not an hotel. They venture in timidly, so as to be able to make a graceful retreat should anyone suddenly stop them. Americans ' don't ask leave, but walk B i r i'g^V>n« To whom does publio properly belong ? In America, to the public; with us, io most cases, to the heads of departments. When we step into the Stock Exchange, of course, as the object is merely to look on, and also. to find out the source of the information that runs so freely from the automaton telegraph machine, it is not necessary that we should mix with the MpK^ 3 * _. Spectators therefore can only look on from the public gallery. Before we reach our places we catch the sounds .of strange uproar. The I floor space is somewhat less than tbat of tbe Melbourne Town hall. Groups of excited madmen are scattered over the room. Men shout, scream, and. gesticulate. They shake their fists, or appear to do so, at one another over the heads of intermediate parties. Some one shrieks what we should imagine to be a gross insult to some body else, ahd we see his words instantly noted down, to be made the basis, no doubt, of an immediate police prosecution. No articulate sounds arise from the din. Presently a lull occurs, and tbe persons who bave been bearding one another like combatants in a stag quarrel, now pace: tbe room together, laughing and jesting and playfully tapping hats over the eyes of tbe persons whose backs happen to be turned to thero. Tuus ' we see the scene suddenly change from a madhouse to a playground. Before, however, anyone bas bad half a minute's time to recover breath, an idea suddenly strikes someone, as an .aspiration seizes a Mormon elder, and he makes a loii d exclamation. He is instantly surrounded. He shouts at the top of his voice; his words are burled hack in nrs > teetb',.a'a(jl enemies on the circumference of tbe ring make frantic reaches at him with two fingers. This irruption lasts' about two minutes. " Then when they have all. become hoarse and artd-w^iafyj somebody jots something

down, and quiet is restored, to be followed speedily by a fresh out break in ft new quarter. -The groups constantly change. One of them grows rapidly by accretions from its neighbors, till it covers half the floor, and then. as rapidly dissolves into fragments. They have motions, like the whirls in the pool below Niagara. This is the way then, in which the business of the nation is transacted, and it is amidst an uproar such as once occurred at Ephesus that the values of the public securities are determined. The outcome of this confusion is the two or three long tables Of figures, accompanied by a lucid commentary, which appear next day in the papers. But it is not from chaos such Ss we have looked down upon that the telegraph operator collects his items. At stated hours the president enters by a door at the remote end of the hall, and ascends the judicial bench. We hope hope he has come to put an end to the tumult, and frown severely oa the school-boys who bonneted one another. He raps on the desk with an auctioneer's hammer and collects an audience. He then begins to call over the list quickly, and brings down the hammer at measured intervals. The blank column on the black board ' is rapidly filled up with chalk marks. Every time the president raps an officer beside him notes down the transaction on a slate, and then manipulates the key of a telegraph instrument. Messages now follow one another speedily along the wires to the Broadway office, thence to be sent off to bookers' ofli.es and banks and hotels, not only in New York but in the distant cities of Philadelpbia, Boston &c. If we had one eye in- the Stock Exchange and another in tbe bank of Philadelphia, where we late sold our drafts, we lately sold our^ drafts, we should see tbat the president had scarcely began to rap ere the tape began to run from the automaton. But What the president says we cannot hear. He adds to tbe din, does not quell it. The groups take little notice of him, but continue their gyrations round the room. A spectator close to us asks who tbe president is, and what he is about. We see that we are among strangers, and need not seek information. Not many years ago the Stock Exchange was the scene of much excitement. Who would not wish to have been present on tbe day when the notorious Jim Fi.k came down to sweep tbe market bare of gold ? This happened in the midst of tbe war, when the price of gold stood at 169 (or thereabouts). Gold was terribly scarce, iand Fiek wanted to lay his bands on the little that was left. To a bold, reckless man the opportunity bad come to paralyse trade and make a tremendous fortune. Qiotations rose like the pulse of a man suddenly smitten with fever. Fisk bid tbe top price for a millions worth. It was sold to bim, and he wanted more. The sellers, an eminent firm of brokers, told bim he could have five millions worth. He had been trapped. The Government, to avert a public calamity, had authorised an advance from the national treasury. Gold dropped as rapidly as it had risen, and was soon down 40 per cent. Fisk repudiated the purchase and had to 'run for his life.