Puslapio vaizdai
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broad avenue of mounted citizens and soldiers extending far into the plains. Nearing the walls, he stopped a number of times to receive the greetings of groups of government officials from that district.

His Majesty passed through the outer gate in a drizzling rain, and continued to the gates of his palace, where he received the last salutation, given by the governor of Rabat, and then rode to the gate. Just as he reached it, three slaves opened the doors and rushed forward with large bowls of fruit and cake, which signified that the palace was in order.

Riding his silver-and-gold horse, Mulai Abd-ul-Aziz disappeared through the gateway, to live in his palace a number of months before continuing to Fez. The umbrella-bearer rode close to the portals, and giving his umbrella a rapid twirl, as a sign that the journey to Rabat had ended, slowly folded it, and mingled with the throng.

Life in Rabat was tedious. Many who journeyed with us were compelled to live in tents, as great numbers of houses were filled to excess, while the continual rains and an epidemic of smallpox proved very depressing.

The royal palaces lay at some distance from the city, and as the Sultan intended stopping only for a few months, he said to me: "Wait until we reach Fez before working." A number of times he spoke of the fine studio which I should build in that city, and surprised me one morning by exclaiming: "I have heard so much about America that I should like all of the studio furniture and materials to come from that country, and put in order bl kä'ida [according to regulation].

"Yea, my lord," I said, and I thought of the order of some studios.

"How soon will the effects arrive?” he asked.

"In about three months," I said after a hasty reckoning.

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Adjäib!" he said. 'America is far." At once I wrote for a royal studio, and by the time news of the shipment was due, court was preparing to move to Fez. Rumors now became serious: the people of that city would not receive their Sultan; they were opposed to his modern ideas, and were prepared to keep him from entering the city's wall.

At any rate, I accepted this interval of confusion to revisit America.

A SONG OF DELAY

BY ETHEL CLIFFORD

LOVE, pluck your flowers:

To-morrow they may fade,

And, faded, who shall tell

How once they were arrayed?

Love, wear your crown:
To-morrow you may sleep,
And, sleeping, who shall say
What state you used to keep?

Love, love me now,

For soon it will be night.
In darkness hearts forget
The gladness of the light.

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THE

HE average London citizen who is not actively interested in finance does not know where the Stock Exchange is. Indeed, the " man in the street," if asked to point it out, would probably indicate the Royal Exchange, the imposing building with the Corinthian portico, standing on one side of the triangle formed by the Mansion House and the Bank, and constituting the eastern focus of London traffic. As a matter of fact, it is by no means easy to point out the Stock Exchange. The original entrance to the amorphous building known familiarly as the "House" (a distinction it shares with the House of Commons and Christ Church College at Oxford) is under an archway up a narrow alley called Capel Court, which well-known name is virtually a synonym for the Stock Exchange. Over the door is the simple inscription, "Stock Exchange 1801-altered and enlarged 1853."

Capel Court itself was called after Sir William Capel, Lord Mayor of London in 1504, in the time of Henry VII, and it then formed the center of an irregular triangle or wedge-shaped block of buildings which exists to this day. The base or west side of the triangle is formed by Bartholomew Lane, which runs down by the side of the Bank of England. On the north it is bounded by Throgmorton street, named after a worthy called Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and on the south partly by

Threadneedle street and partly by Old Broad street. The former derives its name, which should be "Three Needle street,' from the arms of the Needlemakers' Company, while Old Broad street seems to have been named on the lucus a non lucendo principle, being one of the narrowest streets of the city. Bartholomew Lane took its name from the Church of St. Bartholomew, by the Exchange, which had been rebuilt in 1679, after its destruction by the Great Fire in 1666.

Dealing in stocks and shares virtually dates from the reign of William III, the first monarch to attempt to pay interest regularly on the loans he contracted. He was the creator of the government funds, and he founded the Bank of England. Brokers there certainly were before that date. An act of Parliament of 1376, in the reign of Edward III, speaks of the occupation of "brocage" and of "broceurs," later termed "broggery"; but these brokers were not stock-brokers, but go-betweens or middlemen, in which sense the word "broker" is used by Shakspere, who, with the modernity of genius, says, A crafty knave does need no broker." Polonius's advice to Ophelia might be repeated to-day with advantage to the unwary in respect of the specious circulars of outside brokers or "bucket-shop keepers":

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"Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,

1 The Editor of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE desires to express his best thanks to the trustees and managers of the Stock Exchange for their courtesy in affording to M. André Castaigne every facility for illustrating the home and the life of the Stock Exchange.

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Drawn by André Castaigne. Half-tone plate engraved by H. Davidson CAPEL COURT ENTRANCE TO THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE

Not of that dye which their investments show,

But mere implorators of unholy suits." It is curious that the word "investments," here used in the sense of clothing, should occur in connection with the word "broker."

English monarchs of old had many

quaint expedients for raising money. King John, for instance, supplied his exchequer by means of devices which certainly might be termed anti-Semitic. Only the other day we were reminded that Edward I had borrowed some few thousand pounds of a medieval Italian banker, whose descendants were claiming repayment to the tune

of several quintillions for money owing with compound interest. Henry VIII robbed the monasteries, while the Stuarts took or borrowed money from any one, whichever they found most convenient. Curiously enough, however, the first speculative boom was not in stocks or shares, but in tulip bulbs, scarce varieties of which were speculated in to an enormous extent, the price of a single bulb having gone as high as 2500 florins, and the consequent slump was peculiarly disastrous in its effects. The bonds of Charles II used to be hawked about the streets, and were sold to any one who would buy them. By the

reign of William III surplus wealth had begun to accumulate, and a demand for its remunerative employment caused the supply of securities. There were the English funds, or national debt (now for the first time consolidated and established), the stock of the Bank of England, East India stock, which was taken over by the government after the Mutiny in 1857, Hudson Bay shares, which are dealt in to this day, and shares of the New River Company, formed to supply London with water, a king's share of which now changes hands at about £125,000. The first market in which transactions

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Drawn by André Castaigne. Half-tone plate engraved by S. Davis VISITORS BEFORE BUSINESS HOURS (THE MARKING-BOARD IN THE NEW HOUSE)

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THROGMORTON STREET, ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE

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