New York, Nov, 25.
Those who have lived in Shanghai for twenty years or s0 have tecon many Stock Exchange panies, but not all of them lumped together would make a decent shadow of what has been taking place in Wall Breet lately, It is as impossible to describe conditions down in Wall Street during one of these panics fas. it is for the person who has never witnessed it to bring it into mental visualization. The last wee' has been one of the worst in the Ristory of stocks in the United States, Whereas they were xegardd as extremely wealthy a fortnight ayo, many people are now practi-coally reduced to penury, and the smaller operators, those who een in the habit of taking a "fg on margin, have been mercilessly and completely frozen cut. The papers have reported the suicides of at least three of the very wealthy Wall Street operators, and have made a great fuss of' the revile Who lost sums running into millions, But we hear little of tha: vast army who ran accounts running up five figures and Tess, And yet these form the great Hullo of the people who keep the New York Exchange busy.
Several famous runs on the! Shanghai Exchange stand out in my mind, We know how even a Tumour has so altered, conditions between opening and closing that those who drove down from Bub-Bling Well in the morning, feeling comparatively safe, met in the afternoon inthe Club to find that they were "flat." "So it is all over the world. But New York is in a class by' itself. The New York draker docs business with people all over the country, and when stocks began to fall inthe recent catasttrophe people in San Francisco, 3,000 miles away (and even people across the Atlantic) were equally concerned, The World Gone Mad But the actual scenes of Wall Street beggar description. When in the early morning, soon after opening, stocks began to tumble brokers were immediately inundated with selling orders, Tickers during the day were three and four hours Dehind. Orders for selling at best price obtainable came in for all sorts and conditions of stocks from all parts of the country, and at one time it as if every holder had suddenly made up his mind to unload. Those who are interested in the New York stock market will with a history for irrespectively fell nto line with the other kind, drrokers were frantically busy' with all lines in the list, Margin improvement was demanded instantly, naturally, ang where the individual found it'simpossible to raise immediate funds he was willy-nilly sold out forthwith. Clients rebel-Jed, but it was of no use—the brokers and the banks had no alternative—with the result that, men stood with their telephone reecivers in their hands, they were
all. forced to realize that they bad lot Congestion in Wall Street was its height about 1.30, People scemed to have gone mad. Twohundreg mounted policemen were called out to maintain order, but still the chaotic conditions' were beyond them. The sudden break in the market was as important to the highly emotional stenographer who had bought twenty or thirty shares with the few dollars she had saved, which the day before appeared to the ample for her protection but hich subsequently proved but a Grop in the bucket, as to the mil-Jionafre operator who had brought all his borrowing power to beat, and still could not keep afloat. Literally tens of thousands of people in the city of New York came home in the evening "fat busted", As one man expressed his melancho-Jy to me in the subway. Men went their offices in the morning, mith an air of financial well-being, only to return at night in utter dejection fang not worth a cent.
Some of the saddest cases have ome to this writer's attention Where -young married people, in-Nosting all that they had in the sure bet", type of stock, have everything.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.