corners, and which came into vogue in the fifties, has never ceased to be a leading factor on the stock exchange. It was the result of certain inflations of values which necessarily follow the construction of great enterprises. However high a valuation may be set upon any given commodity, there are always persons who expect a higher price. Early historical examples of this fact are the South-Sea shares and John Law’s Mississippi shares, over which England and France respectively went crazy in the last century. The loftier the figures to which these shares mounted, the greater was the eagerness of the public to buy them. But at that period the art and mystery of selling short had not been brought into practice, and when the bubbles collapsed there were universal losers and no direct winners.

During the latter half of this century there have been periods in the history of Wall Street when the prices of railway and industrial shares have been forced enormously above the standard of actual values, and innumerable persons have parted with good money in exchange for mere phantoms of imaginary values. At such times the short sales of discernment, directing the X rays of clear-sighted criticism into the swollen and opaque mass of financial carrion that is exposed for sale in the market, are of the utmost benefit to the public. The bear is then a benefactor to the community, and when he pulls down and tears to pieces the rotten carcass of some gigantic humbug, strewing the highway with its remains, we cannot praise his work too highly.

II.

The present condition of Wall Street is one of lassitude and expectancy. The great banks have an abundance, perhaps a superabundance, of money, their own and their depositors, which they are only too glad to lend on solid and readily salable collateral at low rates of interest, approximating the prevalent rates in London and Paris, where similar accumulations of idle capital exist. A large part of this money is deposited with them by local banks in all parts of the country, which recognize New York City as the financial centre of the Union, and are content with interest of from one to two per cent upon the funds which they are unwilling or unable to use safely at home. The stock exchange is also in a condition of quietude. The public are neither buying nor selling stocks in any large amount.

This state of things is the resultant of well-known facts. Numerous over-capitalized and badly managed railways have gone into bankruptcy, and either are in the hands of receivers or have emerged from such guardianship, and are painfully toiling along on the road to prosperity on the twin crutches of assessments upon stockholders and the withholding of dividends from the same long-suffering and patient class.

The transactions at the stock exchange at present average about two hundred thousand shares a day, exclusive of bonds, government, State, and railway; and a certain class of observers who like to subject circumstances to a minute analysis inform the public that the daily profits of the members of the exchange are about sufficient to pay the expense of office rent and clerk hire. This conclusion takes it for granted that these profits should be equally divided among the membership. This is not a reasonable supposition. Many of the members are such only in name, and rarely go on the floor. Others live during most of the time on their accumulations, and come into the market to buy or sell only when prices are abnormally low or high. The comparatively small busy portion manage somehow to keep fairly active, and are cheerfully looking forward to better times, through a vista from which the cloud of a change of the monetary standard has already passed away, and into which the genius of enterprise beckons them to enter.

III.

While in many respects the future is a sealed book, yet there is such a thing in the economy of nature as an absolutely accurate prevision of events, such as eclipses of the sun and moon, and conjunctions of the planets, and a relatively correct prevision of events depending upon the growth of enlightened communities. Since the incorporation of the Bank of New York, at the corner of Wall and Williams Streets, the banking capital of New York has increased more than sixtyfold, of which more than one-half is held and used in and around Wall Street, and the aggregation of deposited and loanable capital has grown from a few millions to over half a billion. If this has been the result during one century, what will take place in the same direction during the next century? The ratio of increase will not be kept up. A thousand dollars may be doubled in a day, but no such ratio as a hundred per cent a day can be predicated of a million. And yet it is certain that, under proper management, the million will go on increasing; and in the same manner will our half-billion increase by its own earning power, and by contributions from all parts of the Union. The development of the United States in the direction of population, agriculture, manufactures, and mines is so enormous and so steady that this nation will at some not distant period become the most opulent of all the nations of the planet, unless unforeseen and improbable political events happen by which our great commonwealth shall be disrupted or its financial stability overturned. Under a normal condition of things the capital of the citizens of the Union will continually increase, and the banks of the city of New York will be the depositary of larger and larger reserves of whatever capital is temporarily idle in the places where it is created. In due time the financial centre of the world will be shifted from London to our imperial city.

Such a destiny has been foretold for St. Petersburg, in view of the construction of the Siberian Railway and its branches, which in time will open up to industry an immense tract of productive soil in the most fertile parts of Asia, abounding in wheat and corn land, and full of superior water power. But in this superb rivalry between the United States and the colossus of Europe and Asia, the former nation has an immense start as to time, and a still greater advantage in the character of its population. And in addition to these we have the undoubted and constantly increasing supremacy of the English language. Just as during the Middle Ages Latin was the vernacular of the learned classes, and as to-day French is the language of diplomacy in Europe, so is English the common tongue in all the commercial localities of the globe. With English a man can commit himself to foreign travel anywhere, while outside of Russia there are few towns on the various continents in which Russian is not an unknown speech. These controlling conditions cannot be readily or easily changed, especially since no paramount reasons exist why they should be changed.

It is then a reasonable forecast of the future, that in due time the weighty import of the names of Lombard[1] and Threadneedle Streets will be transferred to the name of Wall Street, and the facts implied by such a transfer are of a dignity and power which it is impossible to estimate. The road leading to this great destiny can only be blocked by injurious legislation, and the good sense of our citizens may be confidently relied upon to prevent the creation of such a barricade against national prosperity.

II. THE TRUE INWARDNESS OF WALL STREET.

BY JOHN CLARK RIDPATH.

The organized powers of society are always