CHICAGO'S WHEAT "PIT."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 1514, 9 November 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHICAGO'S WHEAT "PIT."

A SCENE OF EXCITEMENT.

'"The Pit' opt 1 "* at 9.30, and you should see a session through," said my friend (writes H. Leach in the Daily Mail), and at the proper time next morning we strode in the quick Chicago way down La Sallestreet to the big building that closed up the end of it. Wo passed through the big doors, turned towards a winding staircase on the light and as we did so such a. wcirdness of distant, man-mado sound was heard as made one's nerves ■•witch. The market was just opening, and there was such a roaring of voices as none could ever describe. It was like the noise of a mob or an army in the wings of a- theatre multiplied by an America): million. At each step is came nearer to us. At the top we went through the open doors into the immense hall, with it? coloured glass roof, its enormous windows with their (amy panels, its wonderful machinery for the quick transaction 0 { business and the reception and disi semination of intelligence, and its yelling, screeching, gesticulating hundreds of men, seemingly wild in their frenzy of coimnerci;:! activity. • What "The Pit" is Like. • And now it is ;» busy and specially interesting time in the great chamber at the end of La Sullc-street. The corn is being harvested in tho west and the crops are among the finest on record, while tales are coming in from Europe about wet having dan: a god the eastern grain, so that is appears Chicago may have to feed rather more of the world than usual next year. In "The Pit" there are really four little pit?. On the, left are, first, the wheat pit, round about which some three hundred active traders are variously engaged,; farther ajong on the same side there is the corn pit. while near to us on the right is the oats pit, and beyond it the provisions pit. which have some seventy-five and forty traders associated with them. Each of these pits consists of an octagon, vhiili in the case of the wheat pit is some eight yards wide. There are three steps up it and three steps down on the other side to the centre, which has a smearing of sawdust. Then traders, many of them in their shirt-sleeves, range themselves round the top of the:** octagonal stairs and down the inner side •so that they may all see each other well. The wheat and corn pits are joined together by a high bridge, on which are telegraph operators. Just below them and in seats overlooking the two main pits are reporters, who indicate to them the prices that are in force from moment to moment, and these prices are at once flashed along the wires all over America and to other places that are interested. Lines of wire join up the bridge to the reporters' boxes at the oats and provision pits, and notes of the prices realised are being continually shot along to the bridge in little cases. To the left of the wheat and .*■ rn pits the trading for grain prod':r ,i and r-cld for cash is done, samples ' ding at hand of all the car-loads that are coming along. At another side of the hall there are many long-distance telephones constantly in use, conversations being carried on with New York, a thousand miles away, with more speed of connection and convenience than if I in the Strand were to ring up someone in Piccadilly. The " Best Room-" Beyond this great hall is another, which is a kind of rest room provided with many chairs all set to face a platform, where n diligent official is ceaselessly engaged in writing in great chalk letters on an immense slate, which is perhaps fifty feci long and ten feet high, the prices as they come in from all, parts of the world. Chiefly the quotations for September, December, and May deliveries from New York, St Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Duluth, and Winnipeg are those which matter most. A very sharp eye is always being kept on Winnipeg. Then the whole world is daily examined and daily are calculations chalked on this slate as to the available supply of wheat for bread and how it compares with the same period in other years. The traders consider these figures, they reckon the demand, they see from a fresh-made map on the walls the state of the weather all over the United States at that very moment and they act accordingly. Statistics of every kind are placed on the board having reference to the food markets of the world, and all the time the clack-clack-clacking of the Morse indicators is going on overhead and the man with the chalk skips about from one end of his platform to the other altering the figures as messages from the west, from London, from Paris, Odessa, everywhere, tell him of new prices that pre made. A Deafening Tumult. But back in the pits there is the great drama being played. The noise is deafening; arms are everywhere being thrown about as if the operators were in tho wildest frenzy of excitement; upon their faces you may see tho most extraordinary expressions and changes. One man on the top of his octagon turns with his back to his pit, does a kind of Highland jig, violently shakes his clenched fists, and makes such a series of contortions upon his features as would convince anyone that he was crazy—anyone not in tho pit.

The general noise Is so great, so many people screech and scream at once, that tho main body of transactions is not done by voice at all, but by a process of finger 6igns. To begin with, it is to be said that trading is always done in so many thousands of bushels. Wheat having sold at ninety cents, a trader catches the eye of another opposite to him in the pit who has 50,000 bushels to sell, and partly by telepathy, partly by a motion of the clenched fist, signals that he will take the "50 wheat" at 90. But, in reply the seller holds up his right hand with the finger extended horizontally, indicating that ho wants 90A cents- Tho buyer motion? acceptance and signals back " g. The two traders note on their cards "Sold 50 at i Williams" and "Bought 50 at i Richardson," and after they leave the Pit they meet and check the operation. The finger signs are certain, and honour among tho traders is very high that held horizontally, the clenched fist indicates the price in even cents, each finger held out represents an added eight of a cent up to five-eighths, the extended hand "With tho lingers close together means three-quarters, and the thumb only signals seven-eighths.

At one o'clock a great bell high above the entrance clangs out one loud resonant *mg. Five minutes later and again five minutes after that it rings again, and then a t a quarter-past one it clangs three times. It is the signal for the close of trading. No more prices are noted by the official reporters, no more are cabled anywhere; the market is done. For two or threa last moments there is one wild feverish attempt to make a final stroke °f business and then the roar and the babble fade away to nothing, and soon after the Pit is deserted by all save those who come in to clean it up for another day.