Chapter III: The Government Board

The room used by the Government Board, in which all transactions in the bonds and securities of the United States take place, is located on the second floor of the Exchange building. It is handsomely frescoed and furnished in green rep. The basement beneath this room is an immense vault, containing 618 safes, arranged in three tiers, and guarded by four policemen detailed for that purpose. These safes are a foot and a half square, and are rented by the brokers who deposit in them overnight small tin boxes containing their bonds and other securities. It is estimated that the value of the securities nightly deposited here is over two hundred millions of dollars.

The seats of the brokers in the Government Room are arranged in tiers, rising one above the other, from the floor to the wall. The officers occupy a platform at the head of the chamber. The order of business is very much like that of the Stock Board.

"The Vice-President begins:

"'6s '81 registered--'81 coupon. 5.20s '62 registered--coupon. What's bid?'

"Here and there from flanking chairs come sputtering bids or offers:

"'Ten thousand at 3/8, buyer 3.'

"'I'll give an 1/8, seller 3, for the lot.'

"'0.25, buyer 30, for fifty thousand.'

"'0.25, regular, for any part of five thousand.'

"_First Voice_. 'Sold,--five hundred.'

"The presiding officer repeats the sale and terms, the secretary makes his registry, and a new bond is started.

"Sometimes when 5.20s are called, there is at first only one voice which rings the changes on 'I'll give 115. I'll give '15 for a thousand,--'15 for a thousand.' Presently, however, before any response follows the offer, a member in a distant corner, either carelessly or maliciously, shouts out, 'I'll give '14 for a thousand,--'14 for a thousand.'

"The Vice-President plies his hammer: 'Fine Irving--fine Irving fifty cents.' The Roll keeper proceeds to make his little note of it, and Irving, who has violated the rule, founded on common sense, which forbids a member from making a bid below or an offer above the one which has the floor immediately subsides amid the laughter of his neighbors.

"Occasionally an interruption of a grosser character occurs, a member leaping from his seat on some slight provocation, and striking off the hat of the man who has offended. Fine Harrison, fine Harrison again, _fine_, FINE him again,--FINE Harrison,' cries the Vice-President, repeating the word without cessation until the broker's wrath has been appeased, and he returns to his chair with the disagreeable reflection that a heavy score is against him for the semi-annual settlement-day. Every repetition of that fatal monosyllable was a fresh mark of fifty cents or a dollar against his name. Generally, however, the Government brokers are more orderly than their neighbors in the Regular Board. Indeed, the whole proceedings are more decorous and respectful, the bidding, half the time, being carried on in a low conversational tone. At second call there is a brief excitement, but when 'things are dull' throughout the street, this room peculiarly reflects the external influences.

"Very different it is, however, on days when some special cause provokes great fluctuations. Then the members spring from their seats, arms, hands, excitable faces, rapid vociferations, all come in play, and the element of pantomime performs its part in assisting the human voice as naturally as among the Italians of Syracuse. To the uninitiated the biddings here are as unintelligible as elsewhere, sounding to ordinary ears like the gibberish of Victor Hugo's Compachinos. But the comparative quietude of this Board renders it easier to follow the course of the market, to detect the shades of difference in the running offers, and generally to get a clearer conception of this part of the machinery of stock brokerage."

In former times brokers were subjected to great expense in keeping a host of runners and messengers to bring them news of the transactions at the Exchanges. The introduction of the Stock Telegraph has made a great and beneficial change in this respect. In every broker's office, and in the principal hotels and restaurants of the city, there is an automatic recording instrument connected by telegraphic wires with an instrument in the Stock and Gold Exchanges. The operator in these exchanges indicates the quotations of stocks and gold on his own instrument, and these quotations are repeated by the instruments in the offices throughout the city. These office instruments print the quotations in plain Roman letters and figures on a ribbon of paper, so that any one can read and understand them. Thus one man does the work formerly required of several hundred, and no time is lost in conveying the information. The broker in his office is informed of the transactions at the Exchange at the very instant they are made.