Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

September three-eighths ;" and he continued to yell these words until, with the perspiration running down his face and his voice gone, he retired to make room for somebody else who took up the same cry. All this time some fifty others, and sometimes double that number, were standing on the steps and all round on the floor outside yelling, “I sell September," "I sell October," "I sell year;" or, "I buy September," "I buy October," or, "I buy year," with some fraction added. Occasionally one of the crowd. would retire to recruit, but his place was not left vacant for a moment—a fresh comer took up the cry and the fearful din went on undiminished. After a while I sought out my friend to tell me what all this meant. His explanation was that to sell or buy "September" or " October" was to sell or buy grain deliverable at any time during the month named, the particular time being in the option of one of the parties—whether the seller or purchaser I forget. In selling or buying "year," delivery is to be taken before the end of the year, the option being as before. The fraction named in the offer is the fraction of a cent, and is used for brevity, the whole number of cents in the price per bushel being understood; usually, if not invariably, it is the number of whole cents in the last quoted price. The hours for business in the Board of Trade are from 10 or 11 A.M. till I P.M., and transactions entered into during that time have certain privileges in the way of dispensing with formalties which other transactions have not. When a broker wishes to buy, he selects one who is offering to sell for the month in which he wants. delivery, looks at him as he yells and holds up his finger, the other stops his cry and holds up his finger too, the buyer says, "How much?" the seller says, " five," "fifty," or "a hundred,” as the case may be, according to the quantity he wishes to sellthousand of bushels being understood. Suppose the seller says "a hundred," and the buyer wants only fifty thousand bushels, the latter says, "I take fifty;" each makes a note on one of the slips of paper he holds in his hand, and the bargain is closed. A bargain of this kind, to be enforced by the Courts, must have been transacted in Board hours. At any other period of the day a transaction of similar magnitude would require the ordinary legal formalities. When delivery comes to be taken the thing is arranged with equal simplicity. The purchaser hands his cheque

C

for the price to the seller, and receives in exchange-his grain do you suppose? Not at all,-an Elevator certificate or delivery order is what he obtains. This he gives to the agent of the Railway or Shipping Company which is to carry the grain to his customer in the Eastern States, or to New York, Montreal, or Boston, for shipment to Europe. The Company presents the certificate, gets the grain, and carries it to its destination, and the whole thing is done. Thus without ever seeing the grain purchased, or even a sample of it, the Chicago broker buys in the course of a year hundreds of thousands of bushels of all sorts of grain and ships it to his customers in all parts of the world, without the slightest fear that anything less valuable than he has bought and paid for will be delivered to him. And his confidence is amply justified.

Towards one o'clock the din increases to such an extent that conversation in even the most distant part of the large room could only be carried on by a series of shouts. New comers were constantly arriving and hurrying to one or other of the centres of disturbance, and as if there was not sufficient noise there already, the younger arrivals signalised their arrival by a leap as far into the crowd as they could propel themselves, and a whoop which sounded like a reminiscence of the not long past time when the site of the city was the heritage and possession of the Red Indian. A minute or two after one, the day's transactions are posted up in the Board room, and to one who has seen nothing but gesticulation, and heard nothing but yells of "I sell" and "I buy," their magnitude is a surprise. In the course of the year 1881 Chicago received by rail and ship about one hundred and forty million bushels of various kinds of grain, besides about five million barrels of flour; and its shipments in the same year amounted to over one hundred and thirty million bushels of the former, and over four and a-half million barrels of the latter. In addition to this there is an immense business done in Lumber, Seeds, Hides, Butter, Cheese, Cattle, Sheep, and Hogs-the shipments of Hog Products alone during the year mentioned considerably exceeding one thousand million pounds. When it is remembered that not only is the bulk of this business done in the Board of Trade, but in addition to it a practically incalculable amount of speculative business, which is never represented by receipts or deliveries of anything more substantial than the amount of the wager-that is the difference be

corner.

tween the price at the date of sale and that of delivery, it will readily be understood that during the few hours in each day when regular business is done, the Board of Trade is a lively And it is a lively place. The Paris Bourse is a peaceful retreat compared with the Chicago Board of Trade when there is a "corner in wheat." Yet in the middle of their greatest excitement, they are ever ready for fun. If an unfortunate stranger in the balcony set apart for visitors who are not taken on the floor. by a member commits the mistake of throwing himself back on his seat and putting his feet on the railing in front of him (a favourite attitude with Americans) every Broker on the floor forgets business, and turns round to yell " Boots, boots, boo-booboots!" until the astonished visitor, who usually has no conception that this is not a part of the mad performance he has been previously watching, either, more by accident than design, shifts the offending members to the floor, or, keeping them too long in the objectionable position, is gently but firmly expelled, for shocking the feelings of the gentlemen beneath. Such is the Chicago

Board of Trade as it struck a stranger; but what of Chicago itself? We shall see in our next.

(To be continued.)

K. M'D.

THE LITERATURE OF THE CROFTER QUESTION.-In Good Words Sheriff Nicolson gives a graphic sketch of The Last Cruise of the Lively;" and we note with special satisfaction the kindly and sympathetic tone in which he speaks of the crofters. Their representatives everywhere, be says, with occasional exceptions, merited the compliment which was paid to their predecessors by Sir John M'Neill in 1851, when he reported that they gave their evidence "with a politeness and delicacy of deportment that would have been graceful in any society, and such as, perhaps, no men of their class in any other country could have maintained in similar circumstances.' Sheriff Nicolson says the only persons whom the chairman of the Commission had to admonish anywhere for objectionable expressions were not crofters but educated men.' Yet it is this valuable class of the community upon whom a leading Liberal journal [the Scotsman] is constantly pouring contempt and scorn, and who are driven to such extremities by the Highland lords of the soil, that there is no alternative for them save starvation or exile. "The Isle of Skye in 1882 and 1883," a new volume by Mr A. Mackenzie, of Inverness, gives a detailed account of evictions in that island which affected directly no fewer than seven hundred families, each, on an average, representing at least five persons, thus making a grand total of more than 3500 souls, not less than two thousand of whom were evicted, during the last half century, from the property of Macleod of Macleod. "What physical misery," exclaims Mr Mackenzie, "what agony of soul, these figures represent, it is impossible even to imagine!" Nor does this exhaust the woeful story; for a terrible amount of suffering has been indicted, apart altogether from the cases of expatriation, on the hundreds of poor people removed from one portion of the island to another-many of them robbed of their bill pasture, and left to comparative starvation, with their cattle, on wretchedly small and unprofitable patches among the barren rocks on the sea-shore. And all this misery and agony have been inflicted to gratify the inhuman selfishness of some two or three persons, who, by the mere accident of birth, enjoy a power which they could never have otherwise secured for themselves.Christian Leader.

CELTIC

MYTHOLOGY.

BY ALEXANDER MACBAIN, M.A.

VII.-DRUIDISM-(Continued.)

SUCH is the history of Druidism in Gaul and early Britain: of its course in Ireland we have no direct information. It is only when Christianity has been long established, and Druidism a thing of the remote past, that we have writers who speak of the Druids; and in their eyes the Druids were but magicians that attended the courts of the pagan kings. The lives of the pioneer saints, Patrick and Columba, are full of contests between themselves and the royal magicians, who are called in the Gaelic Druid and in the Latin versions Magi. But in all the numerous references to them in Irish chronicles and tales there is no hint given of Druidism being either a system of philosophy or religion the Druids of Irish story are mere magicians and diviners, sometimes only conjurors. But as such-as magicians—the Druids play a most important part in Irish pagan history, as chronicled by the long posterior Christian writers. From the primæval landing of Partholan with his three Druids, to the days of Columba, we have themselves and the bards exercising magic and divining powers. The second fabled settlers of Ireland, the Nemedians, meet the invading Fomorians with magic spells; but the fairy host of the Tuatha De Dannan are par excellence the masters of Druidic art. Their power over the forces of Natureover sea, wind, and storms—shows them plainly to be only degraded gods, who allow the sons of Miled to land after showing them their power and sovereignty as deities over the island. The kings and chiefs had Druids about them to interpret omens and to work spells; but there is no reference to these Druids being a priestly class, and their power was limited to the functions of mere divination and sorcery. Two of the most famous Druids were Cathbadh, Druid of Conchobar Mac Nessa, the instructor of Cuchulain, who, among many other things, foretells the fate of Deirdre and the sons of Uisnach, even before Deirdre was born; and Mogh Ruith of Munster, who single-handed opposed Cor

mac and his Druids, and drove them by his magic fire and stormspells out of Munster. The Druids of King Loegaire oppose St Patrick with their magic arts; one of them causes snow to fall so thickly that men soon find themselves neck-deep in it, and at another time he brings over the land an Egyptian darkness that might be felt. But the saint defeats them, even on their own ground, much as Moses defeats the Egyptian magicians. St Columba, in Adamnan's life of him, is similarly represented as overcoming the spells of the Northern Druids. Broichan, Druid to King Brude, caused such a storm and darkness on Loch-Ness that the navigation appeared impossible, until the saint gave orders that the sails should be unfurled and a start made. Then everything became calm and settled. We are also told in many instances how the Druids worked these spells. A wisp of hay, over which an incantation was made, when cast on a person, caused idiocy and deformity. The Druidic wand plays an important part, a blow from it causing transformations and spells. It must be remarked, too, that the wood used for wands and Druidic rites and fires was not the oak at all, as in Gaul: sacred wood among the Irish Druids would appear to have been the yew, hawthorn, and, more especially, the rowan tree. Divination was an important feature of Druidic accomplishments, and there were various forms of it. Pure Druidic divination sometimes consisted in watching the Druidic fire-how the smoke and flame went. Sometimes the Druid would chew a bit of raw flesh with incantation or "oration" and an invocation to the gods, and then generally the future was revealed to him. Sometimes, if this failed, he had to place his two hands upon his two cheeks and fall into a divine sleep, a method known as "illumination by the palms of the hands." Fionn used to chew his thumb when he wanted any supernatural knowledge. The bards, too, were diviners at times, a fact that would appear to show their ancient connection with the Druids. The bardic divination is known as "illumination by rhymes," when the bard in an ecstatic state pours forth a flood of poetry, at the end of which he brings out the particular fact that is required to be known. Connected with this is the power of poetic satire. If a man refused a gift, the bard could satirise him in such a way that personal injury would result, such as blisters and deformities.

« AnteriorContinuar »