r for miles along Fifth Avenue until one
would think one was dreaming; all the houses seemed to be from fifteen to
twenty-five stories high, and so the air rushes down the gorges the streets
are, like a tornado, even if it is not a particularly windy day. It is a
mercy American women have such lovely feet and nice shapes, because when
they cross to a place called the Flat Iron Building the gusts do what they
please with their garments. I am quite sure if the Roues' Club in
Piccadilly could get itself removed to a house just here, those wicked old
men would spend their days glued to the windows. Well, we passed Washington
Square, which has a look of Russell or Bedford Squares, part of it, and
beyond that I can't remember the names of the streets; it all was so
crowded and intent and wonderful,--people racing and chasing after wealth,
I suppose.

Finally we got to Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. And Wall Street is
quite a little narrow, ordinary street, almost as mean as our Threadneedle
or Lombard Streets! The Stock Exchange is the most beautiful building! I
don't suppose you have ever been in one, Mamma, and I certainly shall never
want to see another. Imagine a colossal room as high as a church, with a
Greek roof and a gallery at one end, and down below countless human
beings--men at highest tension dealing with stocks and shares, in a noise
of hell which in groups here and there rose to a scream of exaltation or a
roar of disappointment. How anyone could keep nerves or hearing sense,
after a week of it, one cannot imagine. No wonder American men have nervous
prostration, and are so often a little deaf. The floor was strewn with bits
of paper, that they had used to make calculations on, and they had a lovely
kind of game of snowballing with it now and then--I suppose to vary the
monotony of shouting and screaming. The young ones would pelt each other.
It must have been a nice change.--Then there were a lot of partitions with
glass panels at the end of the room, and into these they kept rushing like
rabbits into their holes, to send telegrams about the prices, I suppose.
And all the while in a balcony half way up one of the great blank empty
walls, a dear old white bearded gentleman sat and gazed in a benevolent way
at the shrieking crowd below.

They told us he was there to keep order! But no one appeared to care a pin
for his presence, and as he did not seem to mind, either, what row they
made, we rather wondered