EXCHANGE CALLER

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 June 1927, Page 9

EXCHANGE CALLER

WITNESS OF AMAZING SCENES. Days of whirlwind buying and selling during which fortunes were made and lost with equal rapidity: exciting “booms” and tragic “slumps”—his memories of these will be the companions of Mr. Thomas Miles, chief “caller” of the London Stock Exchange, who retired recently. For 38 years, Mr. Miles’ voice has been heard above all others in the marble-walled, lofty-domed great “House” which, every business day, is filled with the clamour of shouted “prices”; for as “caller” his duty was to cry the names of members wanted by clients in person, or to receive their instructions in telegram and letter. Mr. Miles said; “Every applicant for the job of caller has to undergo a test for the power of his voice, and, like others, 1 had to stand in the ‘House’ and call for about an hour. If a caller canont make his voice heard above the general din he is of use. Luckily my voice was pretty strong and it passed the test.” One of his most vivid memories is of the gigantic Kaffir, or South Afri.can mining boom, of 1895, which he described as follows: —“The scenes in the ‘House’ were amazing. Business went on at a furious rate, and members stopped neither for food nor sleep. They kept their offices open all night, and early in the morning they would walk round to Liverpool Street Station and get a bath at the hotel, and, after a cup of coffee, hurry back. The mining shares rose from 9s to £9 10s, and then dropped to about 50s. The Exchange was -in a fever. Fortunes were made and lost in a day.” There were also exciting scenes during the 1910 and other rubber booms. Mr. Miles recounted how it fell to him to have to “hammer,” or declare, no fewer than 24 defaulting members in three days.

Mr. Miles mentioned that oil the rare occasions in his experience when a stranger had entered the Exchange his detection had been announced wit lithe cry: “Fourteen hundred present!” This cry, he said, has its origin. in the fact that it was always raised to denote the presence of a stranger when the membership of the Stock Exchange was only 1399. This form is still used, although the membership now is 6000. Should a stranger be detected he is' at once removed in a rough-and-ready fashion. He gets no ceremonious treatment. “I remember hustling one out,” said Mr. Miles, “but that was some years ago. It is not a wise thing for anybody to sneak into the ‘House.’ ”