THE WALL STREET BOY

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12587, 23 August 1901, Page 2

THE WALL STREET BOY

A WONDER IN SHREWDNESS AND NERVE. (New York Sun.) The Wall Street boy who has -walked .virtuously through the last few weeks deserves a -well-burnished halo. 01 course rules are strict in regard to bucket-shop speculation by the lads, and any broker's clerk convicted of the offence would be dismissed from an office at once; but Wall Street atmosphere affects even the small boys who breathe it, and the Wall Street office boy takes to gambling as naturally as a duck takes to water. When the Street is speculation mad, as it has been lately, the fever filters down through all the layers that go to make up Wall Street life. Hundreds of quick-witted boys ranging from twelve to eighteen- years of age watch older men making fortunes by speculation, and are smitten with the mania. They can't deal in 1000-share lots, but'to a, five-doUar a week clerk lOOdol looks as big as 10,000dol to the big mien of the Street. Bucket shops aTe numerous and seductive. There is little risk of being caught and! punished for a. visit to a bucket shop and a little "flier." Traditions of office boys who have made big fortunes are many. The boy has a fair idea of the principles of speculation. He hears fob employers and the other brokers talking shop, and picks up tips. He tries a mild bucket-shop- experiment. If ho wins, he is likely to contract tho bucket-shop habit, and either make enough money to figure conspicuously among the boys, or get into ■■trouble-and .'lose his place. There are "undoubtedly scores of Wall Street boys wH©;,obey office rules, and never put a dollar into stocks, as undoubtedly there are scores who do speculate, and the only wonder is that any of them resist the temptation. " There's no room for a boy down here," said a leading broker, "if he isn't bright, and if he starts in and can't keep the pace he has to drop out. It's a case of the survival of the fittest for the work. I don't know that the life is wholesome for a boy, but it's a forcing house for him, and brings out whatever native- shrewdness and alertness and nerve- there is in him. He catches the tone of the Street and aims at miniature imitation of the grown-up Wall Street boys.

"You don't find any stupid, hulking, dull-faced boys in the crowd. You seldom find

loud jewellery. If a Wall Street boy has a swagger, it's what you might, call a genteel swagger. He usually has

AN EXTRAVAGANT ADMIRATION FOR THE BIG MEN OF THE STREET, and ho grasps the fact that the richest and most important men are as. a rule the quiet, cool, unpretentious fellows, so he goes in for impressive calm and quiet elegance. He wants to lookns though he held l the market- in tho hollow of his hand, and could afford to wear inconspicuous jewellery and lunch at a cheap joint if he chose to do it. " It's queer to see the change that even a week -or two will make in a green boy. He comes into an office bashful, backward, badly dressed. By the time he has hadi a few weeks' salary he has begun to be acclimated. He gets the shrewd, intelligent eyes and mouth, the respectful readiness for anything demanded of him, the trim appearance, and the air of responsibility. He's a- new boy. Whether he's always a better boy I won't try to say, but he?s a more efficient one. The successful Wali Street boy has the same essential characteristic as the successful Wall Street man:— nerve, ironclad .nerve."

To an outsider who drifts into a Wall Street office the thirteen-year-old, freshfaced little fellow who cornea in with, important messages or takes puzzling and complicated orders without questions and without .tii© quiver of an eyelash, is an infaint phsenomienon; but his name is legion. Few of th© boys get rich nowadays. There is little chance of it. They begin on sdol a week, and if oxmipteibemt the salary increases gradually, but .3500d0l a year is \ about the maximum salary for a managing clerk, and very few boys mount that high. 1 In the old days before the obligatory commission law, a boy was often allowed, even 'encouraged, to bring to the firm cus- j tomers for very. small amounts, and he j received one-third of the commissions. Some men proinfflneßib 1 on the Street'-to-day tell stories of the money 4»beymade in that way during their office .boy days, and' in-1 sist that at times they made as high as lOOdol a day on commissions. Now that a broker caraaot sell stock for less than 12dol 50 cents a hundred shares, that source of profit is closed to the boys, and they have no more chance of legitimate speculation than a grocery boy would have. When a seat in the Stock Exchange could be -bought for 500dol, as it oould be years ago, tliere was littki to bar a clever boy from) saving the necessary money, even without commissiomis, anid) Wall Street held out fascinating and brilliant possibilities to him. To-day, when it takes 70,000d0l to become a member of th© Exchange, the office boy's opportunities ore narrowed <kom\ and one seldom hears about the poor "boy who rises to be a partner in the firm and rolls up millions for himself. The sens of wealthy men are the young fellows who are being taken into firms as junior pairtoers now. Still, the old traditions of success and RECKLESSNESS AND EXTRAVAGANCE are part of the heritage of the boys on the Street, and vaulting ambition often leads the lads into bad holes. Then there is the long line of stories concerning young plungers who had meteoric careers and bullied fortune into their service. The boys know all of these stories by heart and prefer them to detective or Indian stories.

Henry Ives is a hero to them. Jack Purdy has their admiration, though they criticise his judgment. Of course most of these inciting stories end in disaster, but that is because the heroes had less discretion and nerve, and didn't know when to let well enough alone, when to stop the spectacular and settle down to the legitimate. The boys are convinced that they could do better. Henry Ives's career, is fresh in the memory of the Street. From office boy to millionaire in ten years. There's a record to fire a boy's imagination. To be sure, the young Napoleon of Finance confirmed many prophecies by coming a bad cropper later on, but the morals tacked to the end of the stories seldom interest boys. Jack Purdy was, perhaps, less impressive but more spectacular than Ives. There was the difference between them that there is between Broadway and Bowerv melodrama. Yet JACK' PURDY'S RECKLESS NERVE held the attention of all Wall Street for a time. Out of his effice boy salary and some small speculations he saved loOOdol. He promptly put lOOOdol into 1000 shares. If the market had dropped 1 cent it would have wiped him out, but the goddess of chance did not call his bluff. He wen, and instantly placed his money with various firms, in lOOOdol lots. In these days no reliable broker would accept lOOOdol margin for a 1000-sbare transaction; but, then, conservatism had hot swept through the street, and Purdy had no trouble in placing his orders. Everything cams his way. He couldn't lose. He kept up his original policy, and scattered his lOOOiol orders broadcast, with each deal rolling up capital which he put into the game. The principle of the thing was bad, and the Exchange members resented it. One morning, utterly without warning, the entire market declined. It caught every dollar Jack Purdy had out, and as, according to his system, he had kept nothing back to cover margins, he was snuffed out as.completely as one might snuff a sputtering tallow dip. Report has always had it that the Stock Plrnhan-go deliber-

ately arranged the slump in the interests of conservative and legitimate 'business. ThoXrgh at* other stroll though perhaps none so conspicuous, and the records have tempted many 1 boys to recklessness, and often to dishonesty. In. one casea, boy who carried orders from the office partner of the firm to the Board member fell under suspicion. The firm found that a certain bucket shop seemed to know of: its orders even before they were" placed. Individual orders do nob always affect the market, but this particular firm represented interests that did frequently control the rise and fall of certain stocks. The messenger was carefully watched, but at first nothing cut of the way could be discovered about him. He went straight t'o the Exchange, and hurried as though Ms life depended On it. In his haste he often collided with other boys. Finally, it was noticed that, whenever he had an order of any importance he invariably had a collision. He . ran into a boy. whispered to hhn the order which he Irad on a slip of paper, disentangled himself from the mix-up and sped along to the Exchange. The second boy ran to a bucket shop in the neighbourhood, turned in the tip, and his friends there acted on the firm's order even before it had. reached the floor. PROFITABLE SCHEMES. Another scheme which stirred up the whole Exchange was worked by four boys. Three of them. v*re messengers. The fourth was an expert telegrapher. None of the four was more than fifteen years old.

Th-* young telegrapher was in the telegraph room of the Stock Exchange, and, although he wasn't one of the operators, he could Wad by ear everything that came over the wire. When anything important turned up he gave information at once to a boy outside. It was never found out exactly how he did it, but the boy outside had a baseball whose cover was slit. He tucked the slip of paper under the leather and threw a hot ball to another boy half a block down the street. This third boy drove the ball to a fourth boy, at the door of a well-known bucket shop. This.boy took out the .slip,, read it, and made bucket shop deals, accordingly. The boys had only a few hundred dollars to start tho game with, but they always wo"i; and, in times of great excitement and fluctuation they made big sums, for they had their information before news of tho big movement could reach the bucket shop through the ordinary channels. ' The bucket-shop brought about the exposure. A scheme very similar was worked on the Consolidated Stock and Petroleum Exchange by three boys only; in this case the boys passed the tip along by « sign language, and th© third boy, posted at the door of the Exchange, ordered his broker

to act upon the news. ; : . ". The dishonest cleverness'of such" episodes is a trifle appalling; and, when one considers in connection with it the knowledge of Wall Street methods and businessi necessary to successful handling of the news whyi obtained, one gains a startling idea of THE PRECOCITY OF A CERTAIN TYPE OF WALL STREET BOY.

Such incidents have, fortunately, been rare, and a big majority of the lads, while clever enough for like efforts, axe honest enough to walk the straight, ; and narrow path laid down by rules. Many of them do make an occasional roll at the bucket shops. Some of them get the gambling fever and work it off on poker. In oe'e office it was discovered that the boys were running a miniature bucket shop—a four-teen-year-old who had some capital dealing in stocks and pocketing his 10 per cent commissions relentlessly. A broker who. was an office-boy himself, and probably for that reason is keenly interested in the boys, summed up the situation in this way: '.

"To-day few office-boys on the Street become rich. About half of them are honest and intelligent, wear good clothes and good jewellery, «pend all they earn- and either live and die as clerks, or, in some instances, through the friendship of employers, gefi an opportunity to do something better. Possibly one-fourth of the crowd save money, do not go in fof swellness and get a snug little competency laid up for old age. The other three-fourths go to the dogs at a. two-forty pace. They gamble in every way possible, live lives of excitement and tension that lead them into bad habits of all kinds, are recklessly extravagant, play the races, frequent the Tenderloin— all on a small salary, mind you—and bring up —well, who knows where that sort of thing brings up ?"■