University of Virginia Library

THE WALL STREET BROKER.

The faces of Wall street are stretchy. Scarce
one turns of a morning from under the cool shoulder
of Trinity, which does not wear as many

changes in the progress of the day, as a Gutta
Percha Jenny Lind in the fingers of the most indefatigable
infant. The morals of Wall street are
as stretchy as the faces. Our hero, Paine, is purposing
to convert water into fuel (a very intemperate
purpose); if he matures his discovery, and is
desirous of something new for his fancy to work
upon, I would commend to him the conversion of
Wall street morals into some sort of Caoutchouc;
and feel confident, that if the conversion can be
wrought, a substance will be secured that will
make most elastic fishing boots, or money belts,
and very excellent suspenders, equal to sustain (if
desired) a man's weight, conscience and all.

As for the bench, the bankers, and the bar, such
of them as turn down the Wall street avenue, are
reserved for future notice; I wish now, Fritz, to
give you only a playful sketch of our stock-broker,
whose nature affords capital commentary on what
has been noted about elasticity.

The stock-broker is, professionally, nothing more
than a stock-broker. Lawyers are not stock-brokers,
nor physicians, unless retired from practice;
nor is the stock-broker a calico importer, or a grain
speculator, notwithstanding he sometimes deals in
`shorts.' But morally, and to outward appearance,
he may be something more or less than a

stock-broker. Sometimes he is prim, clean-shirted,
and may even venture upon a broad brim, and all
the outward sobriety of Quakerdom. He may be
sly, with heavy whiskers, twinkling eye, flaring
shirt-bosom, almost a swell in appearance, one
whom you would take for a cavalier at the Minerva
balls; and yet, perhaps, he will hatch out
such a rise in figures, upon some small stock, as
will entitle him to immense respect at the restaurant
where he dines. He may be of plethoric
habit, sometimes indulging in a white cravat—
possibly a vestryman, or at any rate, very thoughtful
at class-meetings, and with religious interest in
some younger brother, will give a nudge of advice
in favor of some short sale, while he stands by, in
the person of a friend, to buy up long. Money
changers in the Temple, is an old story; and to
sweep them out, would in our time be as serious a
work, as that told of concerning Hercules and the
Augean stables.

Most town morals are understood to vary with
the coat, sometimes with the season, and in very
many cases, with the demand. But stock morals
are quite uniform; and after no little observation,
I know not whether they are more `stiff' between
straight coat-collars, or under the embroidery of a
flash waistcoat.

The stock-broker's capital is as elastic as his
morality; it is even more ethereal, and less susceptible
of a practical, and easy working. In ordinary
parlance, the sale of a house implies ownership,
and even the purchase of a mummy, whether
by tickets, or on credit, supposes property in, at
least, some sort of mummy. With the stock-broker
it is different; capital and tangible property are at
best mere locum tenentes; and our pompous member
of the craft will knock you off five hundred, or
a thousand shares, without so much as the shade
of one in hand, or in pocket. And I use these
terms, inasmuch as what is in the hand or pocket
of the stock-broker is as effectively and practically
his own, whatever may be the delusions of his
church friends, or of any residuary legatees, as
anything that he eats or drinks.

Trifling sales, or purchase of half a million, leave
him in excellent good humor for his evening cigar;
though he knows not if to-morrow will rise on him
a broken man, or simply a man of broken faith.
His purse, like his soul, is a sort of Toricellian vacuum,
tube-shaped, into which solid matter rises,
as the Wall street atmosphere is, either heavy or
light. Now and then some querulous ones will
make a stir about some queer absorption of funds,
once called their own,—quite indescribable, and

even less easily traceable by unpracticed eyes than
the rise of the mercury in the barometer; but the
stir, like atmospheric stir, will only serve to make
the silver mount in the pocket of our broker.

The stock-broker is dexterous at dodges. Nothing
in a sporting way is prettier than his manner
of slipping out of a combination, just as it approaches
a crisis; and nothing affords better game.
You have seen coursing, Fritz, if I mistake not,
upon the downs of Hampshire; and have been delighted
with the way in which some veteran puss
will double short upon the hounds, just as they are
upon her; and will leave them to shoot their long
carcasses crazily in advance, while she gathers
breath and courage for a new run. There is capital
coursing of that sort in our town, and prodigious
sweats, this hot weather, in consequence. The
game is served up, as you know, in style. And
such hares, when caught, are, as Charles Lamb
advises, `done brown.'

The solicitation of a friend's money on deposit,
or the receipt of a patron's funds a day or two previous
to a `break up,' are modes of treating Wall
street depletion, which, though not set down in the
rules of practice, are occasionally like homeopathic
ventures, eminently successful. Any but Wall
street morality would hardly recover a healthful

shape after such serious stretch; but the nature
of the material is proof, even against so violent
practice.

The broker, in his purchase of stocks for a friend,
is considerate. He assures him (with a finger in
his button-hole,) that though the price given was
the highest on the list, he had fears of a rise;—
stock was stiff,—might have fallen off a trifle at
the second call, but he had the friend's interest at
heart, and hopes he will gratify Madame —,
(the broker's wife,) by dining with them the next
Sunday.

It is not a little mortifying to one's pride, to find
our friend's superior sagacity—the friend of Wall
street—commuting our dull dollars into very active
ones, on his own behalf; and to find our funds
rapidly sinking, while our friend is flourishing in
an opera-box, or sporting with his wife at the
Springs. Not only is it mortifying, but most singular,
and hard to be accounted for, except by reason
of that peculiar elasticity already commented
on.

The broker is a man of taste, and chooses his
moneyed acquaintances as he chooses his wine—
by color. Green is his favorite in the first, and
claret in the wine. He has an eye for pictures,
too, and prefers single figures to groups; and, in a

general way, does not much affect a crowded background.
Strong lights he abhors, and the atmosphere,
to his liking, is hazy and subdued. He follows
the clergyman closely in his headings, and
will consider the chances of a rise in Harlaem
stock up to the `seventhly,'—will turn the `improvement'
into a lucky venture, and throughout
the closing prayer will cast about, as eagerly as
any, for a `new hope.'

The broker endeavors to preserve a uniformly
serene air, and is never hurried, except when in
search, at a late hour of the morning, of a brother
broker, who has a `few thousands over.' His language
at the board is short and crisp, and never
wearies the thought, except of the uninitiate; it is
full of ellipses; his accusatives are governed by
Synechdoche, and his mood, after a similar Greek
standard, is usually optative. He will sell you `a
hundred Harlaem at sixty, seller twenty—five to ten
up,' or `take 'em at fifty-seven at the opening, ten
or twenty up.'

He is fond of seducing some successful Pearl
street man, of ambitious views, into the neighborhood
of the board; and, after an evening or two
over Delmonico's Chambertin, may bring him into
a healthful state for an `operation.' Its issue
will be apt so far to disgust our simple merchant

with Wall street, that he will ever after go to the
Fulton, or to the Bowery Banks for his discounts.

As for the legality of our broker's action, it is a
small affair, scarce cognizable even from the second
story windows of the Wall street offices. His field
standard is honor, which is as steady as his morality,
or as the politics of the Herald.

He has a bowing acquaintance with the writers
of `money articles;' and is on easy terms with
telegraph operators. He has even been known to
invite them to dine, and to supply gratuitous advice
about the prospective value of stocks. He
also cultivates occasional acquaintance with such
literary gentlemen as write letters of general intelligence
for the newspapers; and he has been known
at times, himself to furbish up racy sketches of
railway accidents, and very sympathetic appeals
against the wanton disregard of human life, manifested
by the Norwich and Worcester Railroad.[1]
Some engine, too, of extraordinary speed, will sometimes
keep him to a pretty period or two about
mechanism in general, accompanied with the information
(quite accidentally thrown in,) that the
extraordinary engines in question, have been secured

for that admirably conducted road, from
New York to Albany.

The broker, as he advances in life, stretches from
some down-town lodging-house, to a fashionable
hotel, or to a reputable square. He becomes a
patron of benevolent enterprises, particularly in his
own house. He surprises his wife with a Cashmere,
the poor box with a pistareen, and his friend, the
country capitalist, with a balance against him, and
an invitation to dine. He grows bland, and habile
of feature—like the gutta percha heads—with
twisting; he pays more heed to his shirts, to the
opera and to the church, diverting his elasticity
into up-town channels. His coach may, in time,
drive to Wall street to take him up, and the great
elasticities of his career, whose memory still lingers
in some sorely pinched pockets, are sheltered with
strongly welded ribs of brick and gold. He is a
lover of dinners, and rarely, however he may be
cramped, dines short He becomes a pillar of our
town society, and by dint of a fat subscription, a
manager of some artistic union.

Yet the heated air of Wall street is as necessary
to his health, as hot places are always, to hot natures.
Beelzebub out of Pandemonium would be
as ill-placed, as our broker away from the board.
And if he goes up into a high mountain, where air

is fresh, he goes like the brimstone tempter of old;
and from some prospective coal-field, he will point
out the shining tracks of water, and the bright
mineral beds for future combustion, which, if
grasped, or longed for, will consume his victim.

God grant you, Fritz, nerve and firmness to withstand
the Tempter, whether he be broker, or be
Baal. May your conscience keep firm, and not
lose shape under pinching and pulling; and whatever
you may do in the sultry air of our Wall street
summer, keep yourself free from a Wall street
initiative to that hotter place, where the `fancies'
are in active demand, and toward which elastic
morality is very apt to rebound. Our brokers hold
large stock in the inclined plane that leads thither;
and remember, before you take shares,—that facilis
descensus Averni—pray look up your hexameters
yourself; and forget this Dantean measure of our
broker, in a puis spondee, and ænean dactyl.