among these gamblers in buying or selling as they wished; at the same
time they gave the jobber one-eighth per cent, for such accommodation.
As the loss was nothing to the broker, of course this imposition was
looked over, because it saved his own time, and did not diminish his
own commission.{17} It is clear, therefore, that the Stock Exchange is
a self-constituted body, without any charter, but merely established at
the will of the members, to the support of which a subscription is
paid by each individual. They are ruled by by-laws, and judged by a
committee, chosen from among themselves. This committee, as well as
the members, are regularly re-balloted once in every year; of course no
person is admitted within the walls of this house who does not regularly
pay his subscription.
"In this way has the Stock Market been established and forced from its
original situation by a set of jobbers and brokers, who are all, it will
be seen, interested in keeping their transactions from the eye of the
public. These men being always ready either to buy or sell, renders it
easy for the brokers to get their business done, having no trouble but
merely stepping into the Stock Exchange. If a broker wants to buy 5000L.
stock, or any other sum, for a principal, the jobber will readily sell
it, although perhaps possessing no part of it himself at the time, but
will take his chance of other brokers coming to put him in possession
of it, and may have to purchase the amount in two or three different
transactions,{18} but in doing that he will take care to call the price
lower than he sold at.{19}
17 If the system of the private market had tended to lessen
the broker's commission, he would have gone or stood any
where else to transact business for his principals.
18 This at present only applies to young beginners, but old
jobbers, who have enjoyed the system long enough, have been
put in pos-session of large fortunes, and are now enabled to
buy into or sell out of their own names to the amount of
hundreds of thousands.
19 Should other brokers not come into the market to sell to
him, he is then obliged, at a certain hour of the day, to go
among his brethren to get it at the most suitable price
possible. This is sometimes the cause of a momentary rise,
and what is known by the jobbers turning out bears for the
day. A depression some-times takes place on the same
principle when they are bulls for a future day, and cannot
take stock.
~134~~After the stock is transferred from the seller to the buyer,
instead of the money, he will write you a draft on his banker, although
he has no effects to discharge the same till such time as he is put in
possession of it also by the broker whom he sold it to; and it sometimes
occurs, such drafts having to pass through the clearing-house,{20}
the principal is not certain whether his money, is safe till the day
following. In this way does the floating stock pass and repass through
the Stock Exchange to and from the public, each jobber seizing and
laying his hand on as much as he can, besides the eighth per cent.
certain, which the established rule gives in their favour: the price
frequently gives way, or rises much more to his advantage, which
advantage is lost to the principals, and thrown into the pockets of
middle men by the carelessness and indolence of the broker, who will not
trouble himself in looking out for such persons as he might do business
with in a more direct way.{21} When the Stock Market was more public,
that is, when they admitted the public by paying sixpence a day,
competitors for government loans were to be seen in numbers, which
enabled ministers to make good bargains for the country{22};
20 A room situated in Lombard-street, where the banking
clerks meet for the mutual exchange of drafts. The principal
business commences at three o'clock in the afternoon, and
the balances are paid and received at five o'clock.
21 Query,--When a broker has to buy and sell for two
different principals, may he not act as a jobber also, and
put the turns into his own pocket? In such cases the jobbers
are convenient cloaks to disguise the transaction.
22 The loans taken by Boyd and Co., Goldsmidt, and others,
were generally contracted for upon much better terms for the
country than those taken by the Stock Exchange; but as they
were contending against what is known by the interests of
the house, they all were ruined in their turns, as the
jobbers could always depreciate the value of stocks by
making sales for time of that they did not possess.
~135~~but, since the establishment of the present private market, the
stock-jobbers have been found to have so much power over the price
of stocks, after loans had been contracted for, that real monied men,
merchants, and bankers, have been obliged to creep in under the wings of
this body of gamblers, and be satisfied with what portion of each loan
this junto pleases to deal out to them."--In this way little Principal
opened the secret volume of the Stock Exchange frauds, and exposed to
our view the vile traffic carried on there by the _flat-catchers of the
money market_. In ordinary cases it would be a task of extreme peril for
a stranger to intrude into this _sanctum sanctorum_; but as our friend,
the broker, was highly respected, we were allowed to pass through
unmolested--a favour that will operate in suppressing our notice of
certain characters whom we recognized within. It will, however, hardly
be credited that in this place, where every man is by profession a
gambler, and sharping is the great qualification, so much of their time
is devoted to tricks and fancies that would disgrace a school-boy.
Among these the most prominent is hustling a stranger; an ungenerous and
unmanly practice, that is too often played off upon the unsuspecting,
who have been, perhaps, purposely invited into the den for the amusement
of the wolves. Another point of amusement is _flying a tile, or slating_
a man, as the phrases of the Stock Exchange describe it. An anecdote is
told of one of their own members which will best convey an idea of this
trick. One who was ever foremost in _slating_ his brothers, or kicking
about a new castor, had himself just sported a new hat, but, with
prudence which is proverbial among the craft, he would leave his new
_tile_ at the counting-house, ~136~~and proceed to the Stock Exchange
in an old one kept for the purpose: this becoming known to some of the
wags, members of the house, they despatched a note and obtained the new
hat, which no sooner made its appearance in the house than it was thrown
up for general sport; a joke in which none participated more freely than
the unsuspecting owner, whose chagrin may be very well conceived, when,
on his return to his counting-house from Capel-court, he discovered that
he had been assisting in kicking his own property to pieces. Another
trick of these wags is the screwing up a number of pieces of paper
longitudinally with a portion of black ink inside them, and lying on the
table before some person, whom they will endeavour to engage in serious
conversation upon the state of the market, when it is ten to one if he
does not roll some of these _twisters_ between his fingers, and from
agitation or deep thought on his approaching losses, or the risk of his
speculations, blacken his fingers and his face, to the horse-laughical
amusement of the by-standers. One of the best among the recent jokes
my friend Bob has depicted to the life. (See Plate.) The fame of Mr.
Wright's brown pony had often reached the ears of his brother brokers,
but hitherto the animal himself was personally unknown: to obviate this
difficulty, some sportive wight ascertained the stable where the old
gentleman usually left his nag during the time he was attending the
market, and by a well-executed forgery succeeded in bringing the pony to
Capel-court, when, without further ceremony, he was introduced into the
house during the high bustle of the market, to the no small amusement of
the house and the utter astonishment of his owner.
There is a new Stock Exchange established in Capel-court, where a number
of Jews, shopkeepers, and tradesmen assemble, and jobbers who have
emigrated from their friends in the upper house, some ~137~~of whom
have either been _ducks_, or have retired out of it on some honourable
occasion; but as all is conducted upon honour in this traffic of
gambling, these men also set up the principle of honour, on which they
risk what has been honourably brought away from their honourable fellow
labourers in the principal vineyard: these men stand generally in
the Alley, and, hearing what is going on in the other market (as they
speculate also upon the price established there), they will give advice
to strangers who may be on the out-look to make, as they expect, a
speedy fortune by dabbling in the stocks. If they find a person to be
respectable, they will offer to do business with him on the principle
of their brethren, and also exact the one-eighth per cent, as they do,
trusting to his honour, that (although they do not know where he lives)
he will appear on or before the settling day to balance the account, and
pay or receive the difference.{23}
These jobbers speculate a great deal upon puts and calls, and will give
a chance sometimes for a mere trifle. They have not, like the private
market, the public generally to work upon, the by-laws in the Stock
Exchange prohibiting any broker or jobber, being a regular member, from
dealing with them, on pain of forfeiting his right to re-enter; but,
notwithstanding, some of the brokers, and even the jobbers inside, will
run all risks when there appears a good chance of getting a turn on the
price in their favour: from this cause, however, the Alley, or New Stock
Exchange jobbers, are obliged to gamble more directly with each other;
consequently many get thrown to the leeward, and those who stand
longest are generally such as have other resources from the trade or
23 There have many lately entered into gambling transactions
with these gentlemen, and have taken the profit so long as
they were right in their speculations; but as soon as a loss
came upon them, knowing they have no black board, they walk
themselves coolly away with what they get.
~138~~occupation they carry on elsewhere. From this place, called by
the members of the _house Lower Tartary, or Hell_, the next step of
degradation, when obliged to waddle out of the court, is the _Rotunda
of New Botany Bay_. Here may be seen the private market in miniature; a
crowd of persons calling themselves jobbers and brokers, and, of course,
a market to serve any person who will deal with them; the same system
of _ear-wigging_, nods, and winks, is apparent, and the same _fiddling,
rasping_, and attempts at overreaching each other, as in Upper Tartary,
or the Den; and of course, while they rasp and fiddle, their principals
have to pay for the music: but as no great bargains are contracted
here (these good things being reserved for a select few in the private
market), the jobbers, who are chiefly of little note, are glad if they
can pick up a few shillings for a day's job, by cutting out money stock
for servants' and other people's small earnings. Here may be seen my
lord's footman from the west end of the town, who is a great politician,
and knows for a certainty that the stocks will be down; therefore he
wants to sell out his 50L. savings, to get in at less: here also may be
some other lord's footman, who has taken a different view of things,
and wants to buy; and, although their respective brokers might meet
each other, and transact business in a direct way, at a given price,
notwithstanding they either do, or they pretend to have given the
jobbers the turn,{24} that is, the one sold at one-eighth, and the other
bought at one-fourth.--This market, as in the Alley, is ruled by the
prices established in the private gambling market, which being the case,
some will have messengers running to and from this market to see how the
puffs and bangs proceed; and if they can saddle their neighbour before
he knows the price is changed, it is thought good jobbing. From the
Stock
24 Some act both as jobbers and brokers, and will charge a
com-mission for selling their own stock.
~139~~Exchange to the Rotunda, every where, it will be perceived, a
system of gambling and deception is practised upon the public, and the
country demoralized and injured by a set of men who have no principle
but interest, and acknowledge no laws but those of gain.
[Illustration: page139]
As this was settling-day, we had the gratification to observe one
unfortunate howled out of the craft for having speculated excessively;
and not being able or willing to pay his differences, he was
compelled to waddle{25}; which he did, with a slow step and melancholy
countenance, accompanied by the hootings and railings of his unfeeling
tribe, as he passed down the narrow avenue from Upper Tartary,
proclaimed to the lower regions and the world
A LAME DUCK
25 Those who become ducks are not what are termed true
jobbers; they are those who either job or speculate, or are
half brokers and half jobbers, and are left to pay out-door
speculators' accounts; or if a jobber lend himself to get
off large amounts of stock, in cases where the broker does
not wish the house to know he is operating, he generally
gives him an immediate advantage in the price in a private
bargain; this is termed being such-a-one's bawd.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
~140~~
Garden of England! spangle of the wave!
Loveliest spot that Albion's waters lave!
Hail, beauteous isle! thou gem of perfumed green,
Fancy's gay region, and enchantment's scone.
Here where luxuriant Nature pours,
In frolic mood, her choicest stores,
Bedecking with umbrageous green
And richest flowers the velvet scene,
Begirt by circling ocean's swell,
Enrich'd by mountain, moor, and dell;
Here bright Hygeia, queen of Health,
Bestows a gift which bankrupts wealth.
The Oxford Student--Reflections on the Close of a Term--The
Invitation--Arrival at Southampton--Remarks--The Steam Boat--
Advantages of Steam--Voyage to the Isle of Wight--
Southampton Water--The Solent Sea and surrounding Scenery--
Marine Villas, Castles, and Residences--West Cowes--Its
Harbour and Attractions--The Invalid or the Convalescent--
The Royal Yacht Club--Circular in Rhyme--Aquatic Sports
considered in a National Point of Vieio--A Night on board
the Rover Yacht--The Progress of Navigation--The
Embarkation--The Soldier's Wife--Sketches of Scenery
and Characters--Evening Promenaders--Excursions in the
Island, to Ryde, Newport, Shanklin Chine, Bonchurch, the
Needle Rocks--Descriptive Poetry--Morning, Noon, and Night--
The Regatta--The Pilot's Review--The Race Ball--Adieu to
Vectis.
The Oxford commemoration was just over, and the Newdigate laurels graced
the brow of the victor; the ~l4l~~last concert which brings together
the scattered forces of _alma mater_, on the eve of a long vacation, had
passed off like the note of the cygnet; the rural shades of Christchurch
Meadows were abandoned by the classic gownsmen, and the aquatic sons
of Brazen-nose and Jesus had been compelled to yield the palm of marine
superiority to their more powerful opponents, the athletic men of
Exeter. The flowery banks of Isis no longer presented the attractive
evening scene, when all that is beautiful and enchanting among the
female graces of Oxford sport like the houris upon its velvet shores, to
watch the prowess of the college youth: The regatta had terminated with
the term; even the High Street, the usually well-frequented resort of
prosing dons, and dignitaries, and gossiping masters of arts, bore a
desolate appearance. Now and then, indeed, the figure of a solitary
gownsman glanced upon the eye, but it was at such long and fearful
intervals, and then, vision-like, of such short duration, that, with the
closed oaks of the tradesmen, and the woe-begone faces of the starving
_scouts and bed-makers_, a stranger might have imagined some ruthless
plague had swept away, "at one fell swoop," two-thirds of the population
of Rhedycina. It was at this dull period of time, that a poor student,
having passed successfully the Scylla and Charybdis of an Oxonian's
fears, the great go and little go, and exhausted by long and persevering
efforts to obtain his degree, had just succeeded in adding the important
academical letters to his name, when he received a kind invitation from
an old brother Etonian to spend a few weeks with him in the Isle of
Wight, "the flowery seat of the Muses," said Horace Eglantine, (the
inviter), "and the grove of Hygeia; the delightful spot, above all
others, best calculated to rub off the rust of college melancholy,
engendered by hard reading, invigorate the studious mind, and divest
the hypochrondriac of _la maladie ~142~~imaginaire!_'" "And where," said
Bernard Blackmantle, reasoning within himself, "is the student who could
withstand such an attractive summons? Friendship, health, sports, and
pleasures, all combined in the prospective; a view of almost all the
blessings that render life desirable; the charm that binds man to
society, the medicine that cures a wounded spirit, and the cordial which
reanimates and brightens the intellectual faculties of the philosopher
and the poet; in short, the health-inspiring draught, without which the
o'ercharged spirit would sink into earth, a prey to black despondency,
or linger out a wearisome existence only to become a gloomy misanthrope,
a being hateful to himself and obnoxious to all the world." With nearly
as much alacrity as the lover displays when, on the wings of anticipated
delight, he hastes to seek the beloved of his soul, did I, Bernard
Blackmantle, pack up my portmanteau, and make the best of my way to
Southampton, from which place the steam boat conveys passengers, morning
and evening, to and from the island. Southampton has in itself very
little worthy the notice of the lover of the characteristic and the
humorous, at least that I discovered in a few hours' ramble. It is
a clean well-built town, of considerable extent and antiquity,
particularly its entrance gate, enlivened by numerous elegant shops,
whose blandishments are equally attractive with the more fashionable
_magazines de modes_ of the British metropolis. The accommodations for
visitors inclined to bathe or walk have been much neglected, and the
vapours arising from its extended shores at low water are, in warm
weather, very offensive; but the influx of strangers is, nevertheless,
very great, from its being the port most eligible to embark from for
either Havre de Grace, Guernsey, Jersey, or the Isle of Wight. The
market here is accounted excellent, and from this source the visitors
of Cowes are principally ~143~~supplied with fruit, fish, fowl, and
delicacies. The steam boat is a new scene for the painter of real life,
and the inquisitive observer of the humorous and eccentric. The facility
it affords of a quick and certain conveyance, in defiance of wind and
tide, ensures its proprietors, during the summer months, a harvest of
success. Its advantages I have here attempted to describe in verse, a
whim written during my passage; and this will account for the odd sort
of measure adopted, which I attribute to the peculiar motion of the
vessel, and the clanking of the engine; for, as everybody knows,
poets are the most susceptible of human beings in relation to local
circumstances.
THE ADVANTAGES OF STEAM.
If Adam or old Archimedes could wake as from a dream,
How the ancients would be puzzled to behold
Arts, manufactures, coaches, ships, alike impell'd by steam;
Fire and water changing bubbles into gold.
Steam's universal properties are every day improving,
All you eat, or drink, or wear is done by steam;
And shortly it will be applied to every thing that's moving,
As an engine's now erecting to write novels by the ream.
Fine speeches in the parliament, and sermons 'twill deliver;
To newspapers it long has been applied;
In King's Bench Court or Chancery a doubtful question shiver
With an argument already "cut and dried."
Its benefits so general, and uses so extensive,
That steam ensures the happiness of all mankind;
We grow rich by its economy, and travel less expensive
To the Indies or America, without the aid of wind.
Here we are, then, on board the steam boat, huge clouds of smoke
rolling over our heads, and the reverberatory paddles of the engine just
beginning to cut the bosom of Southampton Water. Every where the eye
of the traveller feasts with delight upon the surrounding scenery and
objects, while his cranium is protected from the too powerful heat of a
summer's ~144~~sun by an elegant awning spread from side to side of
the forecastle, and under which he inhales the salubrious and saline
breezes, enjoying an uninterrupted prospect of the surrounding country.
On the right, the marine villas of Sir Arthur Pagett and Sir Joseph
Yorke, embowered beneath the most luxuriant foliage, claim the notice
of the traveller; and next the antique ruins of Netley Abbey peep out
between the portals of a line of rich majestic trees, bringing to the
reflective mind reminiscences of the past, of the days of superstition
and of terror, when the note of the gloomy bell reverberated through the
arched roofs the funeral rite of some departed brother, and, lingering,
died in gentle echoings beneath the vaulted cloisters, making the
monkish solitude more horrible; but now, as Keate has sung,
"Mute is the matin bell, whose early call
Warn'd the gray fathers from their humble beds;
No midnight taper gleams along the wall,
Or round the sculptured saint its radiance sheds."
At the extremity of the New Forest, and commanding the entrance to the
river, the picturesque fort called Calshot Castle stretches forth, like
the Martello Towers in the Bay of Naples, an object of the most romantic
appearance; and at a little distance from it rises the stately tower
of Eaglehurst, with its surrounding pavilions and plantations. To
the westward is the Castle of Hurst; and now opens to the astonished
traveller's view the Wight, extending eastward and westward far as the
eye can compass, but yet within its measurement from point to point.
------"Here in this delicious garden is
Variety without end; sweet interchange
Of hills and valleys, rivers, woods, and plains;
Now land, now sea, and shores with forests crown'd,
Rocks, dens, and caves."