Stocks and Shares (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII THE STOCK EXCHANGE Hard by the Bank of England, from which it is divided by Bartholomew Lane, is a three-cornered block of buildings, the kernel of which is the Stock Exchange. It is a source of bewilderment to visitors to the City that they never can see even the outside of the home of the market in securities. Two sides of the triangle in which it dwells, and most of the third, are made up, as viewed from outside, of the offices of banks, insurance companies, and other firms and businesses; and the fact that the Stock Exchange thus lurks in the background, and shows no front to the light of day, helps to deepen the mystery that veils its working and dealing from the eyes of the public. Entrance to it is gained by several courts and alleys that pierce the outer shell of buildings, and by one or two doors which lead more or less straight into it from the street, but always through a passage or up a flight of stairs. Within, it is a vast hall of irregular shape, evidently having grown along the line of least resistance as it was added to piecemeal, and bulged out as it best could to make room for the waxing numbers of its denizens. To one entering the House, as it is called, for the first time, it gives the impression of an unspeakable Babel of sound and a blurred mass of men, most of them, apparently, very earnestly engaged in doing nothing. As the untrained ear begins slowly to unravel the tangle of noises, it discovers that the loudest and most penetrating of them are produced by uniformed officials called "waiters," sitting by the various doors, who are shouting the names of firms that are wanted by visitors or messengers, or for which telegrams or other missives have arrived; but the background of sound is provided by the members themselv...