, the
Galena & Chicago, the Rock Island, and others of like importance and
real value, the banks and banking houses of Wall Street, and the stock
exchange, grew into most important factors in developing the
prosperity of the country. Enterprises were originated by able men
acting under corporate powers, and when these were brought before the
committees of the stock exchange and duly approved and listed, capital
instantly flowed forth from its reservoirs in answer to the
securities thus offered. And it may safely be said that but for the
combined machinery of the New York banks and the stock exchange the
actual developments of twenty years would have dragged laboriously
through an entire century.

Amid so much progress and activity, speculation was not idle. Those
were the days of many of our greatest railway operators, daring, able,
enthusiastic men, who had the rare gift of imparting confidence to
their followers and the public, and realized the fable of King Midas,
whose touch transmuted all things into gold. Their careers were those
of conquest and accumulation, like that of Napoleon; and, like him,
they underwent, with few exceptions, their retreats from Russia and
their Waterloos. Of such were Jacob Little, Daniel Drew, Anthony
Morse, and others, to whom now the motto of Junius applies: _Stat
nominis umbra_. Merely the shadows of their names reach over to us
from the horizons where their suns set so long ago.

There was an epoch too in the Wall Street of the past when gigantic
and deeply considered combinations were set in motion, entitled
"corners." As to corners, a word of explanation may not be amiss.
There are always two factions in the stock market: the bulls, who want
stocks to rise in price in order that they may sell out; and the
bears, who want stocks to fall in price so that they can buy in.
Contrary to the superficial belief of the public, the bulls are
sellers and the bears are buyers. But in order to sell a commodity you
must buy or borrow it; and in order to buy at a future date you must
sell at a previous date; and thus the bull buys for the purpose of
selling at a profit, and the bear sells something which he doesn't own
for the purpose of buying it at a lower price. The bull therefore
hopes to push prices up so that he can sell his purchase at a profit,
and the bear hopes to drag prices down so that he can buy what he has
sold, also at a profit.

Meanwhile, the bear has delivered the shares sol