Transcriber’s Notes
The cover image was created from the title page by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The eponymous street of the title appears in three guises:“wall-street” (once), “Wall Street” (twice) and most commonly“Wall-street”.
“Mr. Jacob Broker opened an office near the wall-street”, describing the street builton land where the old city wall was knocked down. His descendant brokers, the author writes, have “since congregated in the regionround about Wall Street”, the name which is also used in the book’s title. In all other places in the text it appearsas “Wall-street”.
See the end of this document for a full list of corrections and changes.
A WEEK
IN
WALL STREET.
BY
ONE WHO KNOWS
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
1841.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1841,
BY FREDERICK JACKSON,
In the Clerk’s office of District Court of the Southern District of
New-York.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.—Introduction—The origin ofJoint Stock Companies, andBrokers.
CHAPTER II.—The History of the MorrisonKennel—Nicholas the 1st.—AStock Speculation.
CHAPTER III.—State Stocks—History of theMorrison Kennel continued—Introductionof new characters—TheU. S. Bank.
CHAPTER IV.—How Stocks are bought andsold—How Brokers get outof a bad Speculation—Howmoney is sometimes made bydoing a losing business—HowDiscounts are made andobtained.
CHAPTER V.—The Defaulter.
CHAPTER VI.—A Panic.
PREFACE.
The following pages were written duringleisure hours of the last six or eight weeks, ofwhich “the times” have thrown rather too manyupon the writer’s hands; and the statement ofthis fact, I conceive to be a tacit admission, thatsuch hours might have been better employed.
They were originally composed for the writer’sown amusement; to beguile the tediousness ofotherwise idle time. And not the least motivefor this indulgence was a desire to abstract themind from too near a contemplation of the darkside of that picture, which I have described as apanic. They were not written in the first place,with any view to publication, but as each chapterwas successively read in the presence offriends, and principally for amusement, thosefriends at length advised their publication; andwith their advice they have been submitted tothe press, in the original manuscript, almost withoutcorrection.
The writer has no claims to literary qualifications,and of course he seeks no reward ofliterary reputation. Were it otherwise the readerwould at once convict him of his presumption.
Those persons who are acquainted with th