A Week in Wall Street: By One Who KnowsJackson, Frederick
General
A Week in Wall Street: By One Who Knows
Jackson, Frederick
Wall Street (New York, N.Y.)
“The practice of the aborigines of this country,” said he, “of giving
names to men and things, indicative of their qualities and exploits, is
well considered savage. Since the day when the poet first propounded
the question ‘what’s in a name?’ mere moralists have been at fault. But
modern practical skill has discovered that there is much; and it was
left for the originators of the Morrison Kennel, to find out the best
use that could be made of it, viz: that it may be made to cover one
purpose under color of another—may gain credit for what it is not, and
shield from detection what it really is, or may gull a State with the
promise of improvement, and cheat the people of their money for their
credulity. In short, the advantages to a stock company of a judicious
choice of a name, are incalculable; not the least of which arises
from properly compounding it, so as to mean more things than one, as
the Morrison Kennel and Banking Company. One peculiar advantage of
this last is, that as the projectors are not always certain what they
will do, but intend to be governed by their success, they are thereby
enabled to shift their course to suit the breeze.”
WHY THIS WAS CALLED KENNEL.
“This company would probably never have attained the _soubriquet_ of
Kennel, a mere play upon the original sound, but for the remarkable
financial talents of Nicholas the 1st, profanely called old Nick, in
the first place, and its employment afterwards to help to hold up the
sides of the great bull dog of Pennsylvania, ycleped the U. S. Bank,
who had grown so weak from disease, that it was feared, without such
aid, his attempt to bark, would prove a concussion of air from the
wrong orifice. In other words it was feared, that without collateral
support, the first resumption would _not_ last as long as the second
_did_.
“The circumstances which called into activity the financial talents
of Nicholas, deserve a particular notice, as they have an important
bearing on this history. And for that purpose, I must introduce to
you a gentleman well known in Wall-street; of amiable disposition,
gentlemanly deportment and honorable connections. His person may be
known from his resemblance to king Saul, being taller, by the head,
than any of his tribe of brokers, and, as he bears the appellative of
an immortalized Friend, and the signification will be descriptive of
his character, I will call him Mr. Friendly.”
MR. FRIENDLY AND HIS APPETITE.
“The only thing remarkable about this gentleman is, his extraordinary
appetite; from which, taken with his slender proportions, it has been
inferred by some, that, like the bird most avoided by sportsmen, his
alimentary canal consists only of a straight passage; for he has been
known to gorge and digest more stocks in one day, than the weight or
bulk of his whole body in the certificates.”
FRIENDLY’S CAUTION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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