Lights and Shadows of New York Life Part 16

You pa.s.s from Broad street into the bas.e.m.e.nt of a brown stone building just below the Stock Exchange, and find yourself in a long, dimly-lighted pa.s.sage way, which leads into a small courtyard. Before you is a steep stairway leading to a narrow and dirty entry. At the end of this entry is a gloomy looking door. Pa.s.s through it, and you are in the famous Gold Exchange.

This is a showy apartment in the style of an amphitheatre, with an ugly fountain in the centre of the floor. An iron railing encloses the fountain. Against the New street end is the platform occupied by the President and Secretary, and on the right of this is the telegraph office. There are two galleries connected with the room, one for the use of visitors provided with tickets, and the other free to all comers.

There is an indicator on the outer wall of the building on New street, from which the price of gold is announced to the crowd without. It is a common habit with sporting men of the lower cla.s.s to frequent New street and bet on the indicator.

There are but few benches in the Gold Room. The members of the Board are too nervous and excitable to sit still, and seats would soon be broken to pieces in their wild rus.h.i.+ng up and down the floor.

The business of the day begins about ten o'clock. The rap of the President's gavel opens the session, and as there is but one thing dealt in--gold--the bids follow the sound of the mallet. The noise and confusion are greater here than in the Stock Board or the Long Room, and it seems impossible to a stranger that the President should be able to follow the various transactions. When the excitement is at its height, the scene resembles "pandemonium broken loose." The members rush wildly about, without any apparent aim. They stamp, yell, shake their arms, heads, and bodies violently, and almost trample each other to death in their frenzied struggles. Men who in private life excite the admiration of their friends by the repose and dignity of their manner, here join in the furious whirl, and seem more like maniacs than sensible human beings.

And yet every yell, every gesture, is fraught with the most momentous consequences. These seeming maniacs have a method in their madness, and are changing at every breath the value of the currency upon which the whole business of the country rests. When the fluctuations are very great, fortunes are made and lost here every hour.

Connected with the business of the Gold Room are the Gold Exchange Bank and the Clearing House. The method of settlement with these inst.i.tutions, which are indispensable where gold pa.s.ses so rapidly from hand to hand in the Exchange, is as follows: "On or before half past twelve o'clock, a statement of all the purchases or sales made by each broker on the preceding day must be rendered to the bank. If the gold bought be in excess of that sold, a check for the difference must accompany the statement. If deposits in gold or currency are not kept in the bank, the coin must be delivered at every deficiency. The Board adjourns at twelve, in order to enable tardy dealers to complete their accounts. Provided all contracts are honored, the bank must settle by two P.M. In case of default, the amount in abeyance is debited or credited to the broker who suffers by the failure."

The Clearing House a.s.sociation was created in 1853, and represents the sum of the financial business of the city. "The a.s.sociation is located in the third story of the building of the Bank of New York. The centre of the room is occupied by a bank counter, extending on four sides, with a pa.s.sage inside and out. Fifty-nine desks are placed on the counter for the use of the fifty-nine banks represented in the a.s.sociation. Each desk bears the name of the bank to which it belongs. Fitted up in each desk are fifty-nine pigeon holes for the checks of the various banks.

Two clerks represent each bank. One remains at the desk and receives all the checks on his bank. He signs the name of the bank to the sheet which each outside clerk holds in his hand. These outside clerks go from desk to desk and leave the checks received the day before, with the banks on which they are drawn. Banks do not begin public business till ten; but clerks have to be on hand at eight, when all checks are a.s.sorted and arranged for delivery at the Clearing House.

"At ten minutes before ten the bank messengers begin to a.s.semble and take their places. As they enter they leave with the messenger a slip containing an exact account of the bank they represent. These statements are put on a sheet prepared for that purpose, and must conform precisely to the checks received inside, before the Clearing House closes its duties. If there is any error or discrepancy, the bank is immediately notified by telegraph, and the clerks kept until the matter is satisfactorily adjusted. At ten, promptly, business begins. Clerks come rus.h.i.+ng in with small trunks, tin boxes, or with bundles in their arms, and take their seats at the desks. On the side of the room entered only from the manager's office is a desk, not unlike a pulpit. Precisely at ten the bell rings, the manager steps into his box, brings down his gavel, and the work of the day begins. Quiet prevails. No loud talking is allowed, and no confusion. A bank late is fined two dollars; a party violating the rules, or guilty of insubordination, is fined two dollars and reported to the hank. On repet.i.tion, he is expelled the Clearing House. The daily transactions of the Clearing House varies from ninety-eight to one hundred millions. The system is so nicely balanced that three millions daily settle the difference. Each bank indebted to the Clearing House must send in its check before half after one.

Creditors get the Clearing House check at the same hour. Daily business is squared and all accounts closed at half after three. Every bank in the city is connected with the Clearing House by telegraph. The morning work of clearing one hundred millions, occupies ten minutes. Long before the clerks can reach the bank, its officers are acquainted with the exact state of their account, and know what loans to grant or refuse. Through the Clearing House each bank is connected with every other in the city.

If a doubtful check is presented, if paper to be negotiated is not exactly clear, while the party offering the paper or check is entertained by some member of the bank, the telegraph is making minute inquiries about his financial standing. Before the conference closes, the bank knows the exact facts of the case."

V. CURB-STONE BROKERS.

The members of the Stock and Gold Exchange, as has been stated, are men of character. Their transactions are governed by certain fixed rules, and they are required, on pain of expulsion from the Exchange, to observe the strictest good faith in their dealings with each other and with their customers. If the operations of the street were entirely confined to them, business in Wall street might be regarded as in safe hands. But there is another cla.s.s, even more numerous and quite as well skilled in the ways of the street, who transact a vast part of its business. They are not members of the Exchange, and in former times used to a.s.semble around its doors in Broad and New streets, and carry on their operations on the sidewalk. Hence their designation, "Curb-stone brokers." They no longer a.s.semble on the pavement, for the Exchange has thrown open to them its Long Room. Any one who can pay $50 a year for a ticket of admission, and who has brains and nerve enough to enter upon the struggle, can sell or buy in the Long Room. This is better than standing in the street, exposed to the weather, and moreover gives a certain respectability to the "operator," although he may carry his sole capital in his head, and his office in his breeches-pocket.

No rules or regulations apply to the Long Room. The honest man and the rogue mingle together here, and the broker must be sure of his man. Many of the members of the Exchange buy and sell here, either in person or through their representatives, and many good men who are unable to enter the Exchange conduct their business here. Others again prefer the freedom and the wider field of the Long Room. Still, there are many sharpers here, who would fleece a victim out of his last cent.

The daily transactions of the Long Room are said to average about $70,000,000, or ten times the business done in the Regular Board.

Fortune is much more uncertain here than in the room up stairs. Men buy and sell here with the recklessness of gamblers. The noise and excitement are almost as great as in the Gold Room. The absence of the fixed laws of the Regular Boards puts every one on his own resources, and men are compelled to use all their ingenuity, all their determination to guard against a surprise or unfair dealing. It is every one for himself here. A dozen or more small or new operators are ruined and swept away daily, and in times of great financial excitement the Long Room shakes the foundations of even some of the strongest houses in the street.

VI. THE BUSINESS OF THE STREET.

It is a common habit to speak of Wall street as the financial centre of the Republic; but only those who are acquainted with its transactions can know how true this is. Regarding Wall street and New York as synonymous terms, we find that the street is not only a great power in this country, but that it is one of the great controlling powers of the financial world. Indeed, if the prosperity of the country is as marked in the future as it has been in the past, there is good reason to believe that Wall street will control the whole world of finance. Its geographical location is in its favor. By noon the New York broker has full information of the same day's transactions in London, Frankfort, and Paris, and can shape his course in accordance with this knowledge, while the European broker cannot profit by his knowledge of matters in New York until the next day.

The Stock Exchange of New York numbers over 1000 members, and its aggregate wealth is greater than that of any similar a.s.sociation in the world. The par value of the annual sales made at the regular Boards and "over the counter" is estimated at over $22,000,000,000 annually. The par value of the authorized stocks, bonds, and Governments dealt in by the regular Boards is more than $3,000,000,000, and this vast sum is turned over and over many times during the year. The aggregate of the brokers' commissions on the sales and purchases made by them is estimated by competent authority at $43,750,000 annually. The bulk of this enormous business is in the hands of about 400 houses.

"Out of all the incorporated banks in the United States, there are thirty situated in Wall street and its neighborhood, whose office is not unlike that of the heart in the economy of animal life. Although less than half the full number of banks in the metropolis, these thirty have two-thirds of the capital, and quite two-thirds of the circulation. By a provision of statutory law, all outside National banks, numbering some 1600, are allowed to keep one-half, and many three-fifths, of their reserve balances in New York. In this way our great financial centre is rapidly acquiring the function of a National clearing-house. These temporary deposits bear a small interest, and are subject to be called for at a day's notice. They can only be used, therefore, by the employing banks on the same conditions. The stock market supplies these conditions.

Bonds and shares bought to-day and sold to-morrow, endowed with all the properties of swift conversion, and held by men whose training has been one of incessant grappling with the new and unexpected, are the only cla.s.s of property upon which money can safely be borrowed without a protection against sudden demands. On these securities, therefore, the down-town banks make call loans. The name implies the nature. The money which the thirty receive from without, together with their own reserves, is lent freely to stock-brokers, with the simple provision that it must be returned immediately upon notice, if financial exigencies require it.

This vast volume of what may well be styled fluid wealth is difficult of estimate in figures. The published statements of loans made by city banks make no distinction between discounts of commercial paper and what is advanced on securities. In sum total, the thirty banks lend weekly about $165,000,000. Indeed, including all New York banks, the average is nearly $255,000,000. During the week ending September 18, 1868, these banks lent $266,496,024. The real meaning of these last figures will be better understood when it is known that they exceed the entire average loans and discounts of all the national banks of New England and New York State, with the exception, of course, of the city itself. Or, to take a more sweeping view, they surpa.s.s the total weekly loans of national banks in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Delaware, and New Jersey. Nigh $180,000,000 of the amount cited above were advanced by the down-town banks. What proportion of this was lent on stocks? Probably much over one-third. As many of the other banks also make call loans, we may, perhaps, estimate that from $70,000,000 to $100,000,000 are furnished daily to the brokers and operators of New York.

[Picture: THE PARK BANK, BROADWAY.]

"This, however, is but one element in the lending force of the city.

There are five Trust Companies, with capitals amounting in the aggregate to $5,500,000, which lend, at times, $60,000,000 a week. There are also a large number of private banking houses, of which Jay Cooke & Co. may be selected as representatives, that daily loan vast sums of money on security. The foreign houses alone, which, like Belmont & Co., Brown Brothers, Drexel, Winthrop & Co., operate in Wall street, employ not much less than $200,000,000 of capital."

VII. STOCK GAMBLING.

In the good old days gone by Wall street did business on principles very different from those which prevail there now. Then there was a holy horror in all hearts of speculation. Irresponsible men might indulge in it, and so incur the censure of the more respectable, but established houses confined themselves to a legitimate and regular business. They bought and sold on commission, and were satisfied with their earnings.

Even now, indeed, the best houses profess to do simply a commission business, leaving the risk to the customer, but those who know the hidden ways of the street hint that there is not a house in it but has its secrets of large or small operations undertaken on account of the firm.

The practice of buying and selling on commission is unquestionably the safest, but the mania for wealth leads many clear, cool-headed men into the feverish whirl of speculation, and keeps them there until they have realized their wildest hopes, or are ruined.

It has been remarked that the men who do business in Wall street have a prematurely old look, and that they die at a comparatively early age.

This is not strange. They live too fast. Their bodies and brains are taxed too severely to last long. They pa.s.s their days in a state of great excitement. Every little fluctuation of the market elates or depresses them to an extent greater than they think. At night they are either planning the next day's campaign, or are hard at work at the hotels. On Sundays their minds are still on their business, and some are laboring in their offices, screened from public observation. Body and mind are worked too hard, and are given no rest.

The chief cause of this intense strain is the uncertainty attending the operations of Wall street. The chances there are not dependent upon the skill or the exertions of the operator. Some powerful clique may almost destroy the securities upon which he relies for success, or may make him wealthy by suddenly running up their value; so that no man who does not confine himself to a strictly legitimate or commission business--and but few do so--can say one week whether he will be a millionaire or a beggar the next. The chances are in favor of the latter result. Nine out of ten who speculate in gold or stocks, lose, especially persons unaccustomed to such operations. Like all gamblers, they are undismayed by their losses, and venture a second time, and a third, and so on. The fascination of stock gambling is equal to that of card gambling, and holds its victims with an iron hand. The only safe rule for those who wish to grow rich is to keep out of Wall street. While one man makes a fortune by a sudden rise in stocks or gold, hundreds lose by an equally sudden fall in the same commodities. Even old and established firms sometimes give way with a crash under these sudden changes.

The legitimate operations of the street and the speculative ventures are becoming more and more concentrated every year in the hands of a few operators and capitalists. These move the market as they please, and fill their coffers, and sweep away younger or weaker men with a remorseless hand. It is useless to oppose them. They are masters of the field in every respect, and when they combine for a common object, their resources are inexhaustible and their power beyond computation. A dozen, or even half a dozen of the great capitalists could ruin the whole street were they so disposed, and once they came near doing so. This is the secret of the cordial hatred that is felt by the majority of Wall street men for Vanderbilt, Drew, and other great operators. They know and dread the power of these men, and would readily combine to destroy them singly.

The mania for stock gambling which now sways such ma.s.ses of people, may be said to date from the war and the petroleum discoveries. Since then it has rolled over the country in a vast flood. The telegraph is kept busy all day and all night in sending orders for speculations from people in other States and cities to New York brokers. Everybody who can raise the funds, wishes to try his or her hand at a venture in stocks.

Merchants, clergymen, women, professional men, clerks, come here to tempt fortune. Many win; more lose.

Fortunes are made quicker and lost more easily in New York than in any place in the world. A sudden rise in stocks, or a lucky venture of some other kind, often places a comparatively poor man in possession of great wealth. Watch the carriages as they whirl through Fifth avenue, going and returning from the park. They are as elegant and sumptuous as wealth can make them. The owners, lying back amongst the soft cus.h.i.+ons, are clad in the height of fas.h.i.+on. By their dresses they might be princes and princesses. This much is due to art. Now mark the coa.r.s.e, rough features, the ill-bred stare, the haughty rudeness which they endeavor to palm off for dignity. Do you see any difference between them and the footman in livery on the carriage-box? Both master and man belong to the same cla.s.s--only one is wealthy and the other is not. But that footman may take the place of the master in a couple of years, or in less time.

Such changes may seem remarkable, but they are very common in New York.

See that gentleman driving that splendid pair of sorrels. He is a fine specimen of mere animal beauty. How well he drives. The ease and carelessness with which he manages his splendid steeds, excites the admiration of every one on the road. He is used to it. Five years ago he was the driver of a public hack. He ama.s.sed a small sum of money, and being naturally a sharp, shrewd man, went into Wall street, and joined the "Curb-stone Brokers." His transactions were not always open to a rigid scrutiny, but they were profitable to him. He invested in oil stocks, and with his usual good luck made a fortune. Now he operates through his broker. His transactions are heavy, his speculations bold and daring, but he is usually successful. He lives in great splendor in one of the finest mansions in the city, and his carriages and horses are superb. His wife and daughters are completely carried away by their good fortune, and look with disdain upon all who are not their equals or superiors in wealth. They are vulgar and ill-bred, but they are wealthy, and society wors.h.i.+ps them. There will come a change some day. The husband and father will venture once too often in his speculations, and his magnificent fortune will go with a crash, and the family will return to their former state, or perhaps sink lower, for there are very few men who have the moral courage to try to rise again after such a fall, and this man is not one of them.

In watching the crowd on Broadway, one will frequently see, in some shabbily dressed individual, who, with his hat drawn down close over his eyes, is evidently shrinking from the possibility of being recognized, the man who but a few weeks ago was one of the wealthiest in the city.

Then he was surrounded with splendor. Now he hardly knows where to get bread for his family. Then he lived in an elegant mansion. Now one or two rooms on the upper floor of some tenement house const.i.tute his habitation. He shrinks from meeting his old friends, well knowing that not one of them will recognize him, except to insult him with a scornful stare. Families are constantly disappearing from the social circles in which they have shone for a greater or less time. They vanish almost in an instant, and are never seen again. You may meet them at some brilliant ball in the evening. Pa.s.s their residence the next day, and you will see a bill announcing the early sale of the mansion and furniture. The worldly effects of the family are all in the hands of the creditors of the "head," and the family themselves are either in a more modest home in the country, or in a tenement house. You can scarcely walk twenty blocks on Fifth avenue, without seeing one of these bills, telling its mournful story of fallen greatness.

The best and safest way to be rich in New York, as elsewhere, is for a man to confine himself to his legitimate business. Few men acquire wealth suddenly. Ninety-nine fail where one succeeds. The bane of New York commercial life, however, is that people have not the patience to wait for fortune. Every one wants to be rich in a hurry, and as no regular business will accomplish this, here or elsewhere, speculation is resorted to. The sharpers and tricksters who infest Wall street know this weakness of New York merchants. They take the pains to inform themselves as to the character, means and credulity of merchants, and then use every art to draw them into speculations, in which the tempter is enriched and the tempted ruined. In nine cases out of ten a merchant is utterly ignorant of the nature of the speculation he engages in. He is not capable of forming a reasonable opinion as to its propriety or chance of success, because the whole transaction is new to him, and is so rapid that he has no time to study it. He leaves a business in which he has acquired valuable knowledge and experience, and trusts himself to the mercy of a man he knows little or nothing of; and undertakes a transaction that he does not know how to manage. Dabbling in speculations unfits men for their regular pursuits. They come to like the excitement of such ventures, and rush on in their mad course, hoping to make up their losses by one lucky speculation, and at length utter ruin rouses them from their dreams.

Not only do men squander their own money in this way, but they risk and often lose the funds of others committed to their charge. Bank officers, having the use of the deposits in their inst.i.tutions, take them for speculation, intending of course to return them. Sometimes they are successful, and are able to replace the money in the bank, so that no one hears of their dishonesty. Again, and most commonly, they fail, and they are ruined. Guardians thus misappropriate the funds of their wards.

Even the funds of churches are thus used by their trustees. The amount of speculation engaged in by clergymen with their own money would astonish a novice. Some prominent divines in the city are well known in Wall street. Their brokers keep their secrets, but the habitues of the street are adepts at putting this and that together, and these reverend gentlemen, some of whom preach eloquently against the sins of speculation and gambling, become known as regular customers. The street is full of gossip concerning them, and if the stories told of them be true, some of them have made large fortunes in this way, while others have literally "gone to the bad."

It is not necessary that a person speculating in stocks should be master of the entire value of the stocks. If he be known to the broker operating for him as a responsible person, he may employ only ten per cent., or some other proportion, of the stock to be dealt in. By depositing $1000 with his broker, he can speculate to the extent of $10,000. This per centage is called a _margin_, and the deposit is designed to protect the broker from loss in case the stock should fall in value. As the stock depreciates, the customer must either sell out and bear the loss which is inevitable, or he must increase his margin to an extent sufficient to protect his broker. If he fails to increase his margin, the broker sells the stock and uses the money to save himself.

VIII. THE WAYS OF THE STREET.

Like Brette Harte's Heathen Chinee,

"For ways that are dark And tricks that are vain, Wall Street is peculiar."

It takes a clear, cool head, a large amount of brains, and unaltering nerve, to thread one's way through the intricacies of the business of finance as carried on there. It would be interesting to know how many come out of the ordeal untouched by the taint of corruption. Members of the Exchanges are held by a rigid code of laws, but in questions of morality Wall street has a code of its own. Expediency is a prominent consideration in the dealings of the street, and men have come to regard as honest and correct almost anything short of a regular breach of contract. They do not spare their own flesh and blood. Friends.h.i.+ps are sacrificed, the ties of kins.h.i.+p are disregarded, if they stand in the way of some bold operation. Every thing must give way to the desire for gain. The great operators plunder and destroy their lesser rivals without a feeling of remorse, and by combinations which they know cannot be resisted blast the prospects and ruin the lives of scores whose greatest fault is an inability to oppose them successfully. Tricks so mean and contemptible that their perpetrator would not be tolerated in social life, are resorted to, and if successful are applauded as evidences of smartness. Every man's hand is against his neighbor.

Clerks are bribed to betray the secrets of their employers. The baser their treachery, the larger their reward. We do not propose, however, to discuss the morality of Wall street transactions, and so we drop the subject.

It is said by the gossips of the street that the great Railroad King, Commodore Vanderbilt, is not above using any means at hand to secure the success of his schemes. It is said that he once tried to use his son William in this way. He came to him one day, and advised him that he had better sell his Hudson River stock, as 110 was too high for it. William thanked him, and made inquiries in the market, and found that his father was buying quietly all he could lay his hands upon.

William determined to follow suit. Up jumped the stock to 137. It was a clear twenty-six per cent. in pocket.

When the operation was concluded, the Commodore rode round to the son's office.