sactions at the Exchange at the very
instant they are made.

IV. THE GOLD EXCHANGE.

You pass from Broad street into the basement of a brown stone building
just below the Stock Exchange, and find yourself in a long, dimly-lighted
passage way, which leads into a small courtyard. Before you is a steep
stairway leading to a narrow and dirty entry. At the end of this entry
is a gloomy looking door. Pass through it, and you are in the famous
Gold Exchange.

This is a showy apartment in the style of an amphitheatre, with an ugly
fountain in the centre of the floor. An iron railing encloses the
fountain. Against the New street end is the platform occupied by the
President and Secretary, and on the right of this is the telegraph
office. There are two galleries connected with the room, one for the use
of visitors provided with tickets, and the other free to all comers.
There is an indicator on the outer wall of the building on New street,
from which the price of gold is announced to the crowd without. It is a
common habit with sporting men of the lower class to frequent New street
and bet on the indicator.

There are but few benches in the Gold Room. The members of the Board are
too nervous and excitable to sit still, and seats would soon be broken to
pieces in their wild rushing up and down the floor.

The business of the day begins about ten o'clock. The rap of the
President's gavel opens the session, and as there is but one thing dealt
in--gold--the bids follow the sound of the mallet. The noise and
confusion are greater here than in the Stock Board or the Long Room, and
it seems impossible to a stranger that the President should be able to
follow the various transactions. When the excitement is at its height,
the scene resembles "pandemonium broken loose." The members rush wildly
about, without any apparent aim. They stamp, yell, shake their arms,
heads, and bodies violently, and almost trample each other to death in
their frenzied struggles. Men who in private life excite the admiration
of their friends by the repose and dignity of their manner, here join in
the furious whirl, and seem more like maniacs than sensible human beings.
And yet every yell, every gesture, is fraught with the most momentous
consequences. These seeming maniacs have a method in their madness, and
are changing at every breath the value of the currency upon which the
whole business of the country rests. When the fluctuations