Men And Mysteries Of Wall Street (Paperback)

MEN AND MYSTERIES - 1870 - TABLE OF CONTENTS - CHAPTER I. PAGE PRELIMINARY m 1 CHAPTER 11. TEE NEW YORK S TOC E K X CHANG . E . m 13 CHAPTER 111. A DAY AT THE BOARDS . . 25 CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. MARGINS A ND TEE LOAN M ARKET. . . . 64 CHAPTER VI. THE METHODS O F SPECULATION. CHAPTER VII. CONCERNIN S G T OCK-BROK . ERS . . 109 CHAPTER VIII. HABITS AN D HUMOR OF S THE STREE T . . 139 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. TIIE G OPTERA TORS . 152 CHAPTER X. Tm OUTSIDEB . S . CHAPTER XI. Tm MOBILIT O Y F STOCK . . . 207 CHAPTER XII. IN THE GOLDR OOM ., . . . 231 CHAPTER XIII. TI E G OLD-BROKERS . a . 244. CHAPTER XIV. THE MINING BOARD . . 274 CHAPTER XV. EEFORE18 37 S . . . 286 CHAPTER XVI. FROM 37 TO 60 . . . 299 CHAPTER XVII. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. . BULLS A ND BEARS . Frontispiece. THE LONG ROOM . . Page 38 THE REGULA B R O ARD . . . 119 BROAD ST REE F T RO M WALL ST REE . T . 142 THE GOLD ROOM . . 23 1 MEN AND MYSTERIES OF VALL STREET. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. THE farthest reach of audacious speculation in our day is not without a definite background of conservatism. An age of steam has stringent need of immense balance-wheels. The sharp and fevered struggle for wealth has created a necessity for secure investment and no man, however gigantic may be the balances of his ledgers, feels himself safely over the bridge of fortune until his assets assume the shape of-quickly realizable values. Hence the ease with which national debts are now funded and joint-stock enterprises are set on foot. With an instantaneous exchangeable value for all kinds of property in the worlds market, and an average certainty of return to invested capital, mankind would deem itself not far from the threshold of the millennium.And it is because civilization has as yet failed to make adequatIe progress in this direction with reference to the products of aa culture and machinery, that great money-marts have arisen and expanded into paramount importance. Cotton is good, corn is good, real estate is very good but none of these have the beautiful qualities of 3 percent British consols or United States 5-20s. Commodore Vanderbilt can convert the bulk of his vast property into money in a day. There is no similar market ready to perform a like service for TVilliam B. Astor. a he Spragues of Rhode Island are slaves to their factories. The heavy cattle-raisers of Texas, the great farmers of California and Illinois, the mill-owners of New England, are not merely subject to fluctuations in the prices of their products, they are the veriest victims of circumstance whenever they attempt to turn their property into coin, or the equivalents of coin. Daniel Drew, the drover, had come to comprehend this serfdom very thoroughly before he took up his quarters at the Bull Head Tavern and mastered the subtleties of Erie speculation. Up and down the human gamut it is everywhere the same, even to the affairs of the most modest of capit. alists. The clergyman whose ten years faithful ministry has resulted in the painful saving of a thousand dollars is very much at the mercy of his parish if his money is in land, and quite his own master if it be locked up in bonds or shares, merchantable at once in the great city which lies an hours distance from his village. The tradesman in extremity is keenly aware of the advantage of collaterals over mortgage. Gloucester fishermen know the difference between sloops in the Bay of Funay and apackage of Boston and Maine R. R. stock stowed away in a bank-vault...