labor of years was disappearing and reappearing in the wave line of advancing and receding prices. Fortunes melted away in a second, and white terror-stricken faces told the sad story of broken hopes and hearts. In Wall Street masses of men gathered, and riots were anticipated. The police appeared on the scene, and troops were held in readiness to be summoned into Wall Street at any moment. When night came the gas-lights from hundreds of windows in the vicinity of Broad Street, corner of Wall, burned until the dawn of a new day. Men bent over their books without relief. On Saturday the Gold Board met only to adjourn, as the Clearing-house was crippled. Failures followed failures. The Stock Exchange was suspected of weakness for a time, and throngs crowded its corridors, and overhung the stairway for a glimpse of the commotion, but could hear only the roar of the biddings. The run upon banks in the street, the assaults of angry brokers, the threats of violence against those who were suspected of treachery, and wild outbreaks of despair from such as had been ruined, will never be obliterated from the memory of those who witnessed the scenes.
There are many points connected with the Stock Exchange of great public interest, and which are far too imperfectly understood. We hear of "corners" and "pools," and of "bulls" and "bears," and, have, it is presumed, a tolerably correct knowledge of the significance of the terms thus used. But in discriminating between the various kindred institutions to which the same forms of speech are applicable, one is reminded of the story of the bear's house in the old spelling-book. The mind does not always hit the right bear. Excessive speculation in stocks—that which goes beyond ability to pay losses—is equally reprehensible with over-trading in any other sort of merchandise. The New York Stock Exchange is really the most important business organization in the United States, and probably combines in its membership more quick and ready intelligence, more personal honor in respect to the keeping of engagements, at whatever pecuniary sacrifice, without reference to legal liability or compulsion, and more liberality and generosity in business dealings than can be found among any equal number of men engaged in the pursuit of gain in any other business relation whatever. The business in which its members are engaged, and the manner in which it is transacted, necessitate and develop promptness of judgment and the faculty of instantaneous decision; the strict and rigidly enforced laws of the Stock Exchange, as well as the high tone of public sentiment among its members, enforce honorable dealing independently of legal obligations; while the habit of and familiarity with large pecuniary transactions, and a kind of reliance on mutual good will and consideration
