The "bill-brokers" will be greatly amused with the new line of business
chalked out for them, of "getting bills" from other countries when short
in this. There are two descriptions of "bill brokers," but the class
bearing that designation purely deal with domestic bills only. The other
class are known as "exchange brokers," because they meddle only with
foreign bills; but as to "getting bills" from abroad when bills are
wanting here, that trustworthy and respectable description of agents
certainly never dreams of such an occupation. Lord Howick would seem to
imagine that manufactories of bills existed specially abroad, and that
people could draw with as much nonchalance from Paris or from Hamburg,
upon Jack Nokes and Tom Styles at Amsterdam or Frankfort, as here Lord
Huntingtower accepted for his dear friend the Colonel values uncared
for, or as folks familiarly talk of valuing an Aldgate pump when an
accommodation bill is in question. May we venture to hint to the member
for commercial Sunderland, the _ex_ for Northumberland, that the
functions of "exchange brokers" extend no further than to ask A if he
has any bills to sell, and B if he is a buyer; whereupon he has only
further to learn what rate the one will purchase and the other sell at;
that knotty point arranged, the bargain is concluded, and he receives
his very small percentage. The operations are carried on every day, more
or less, but on Tuesdays and Fridays, being especially "post days" on
London 'Change, where Lord Howick any day may be initiated in the
mystery, if not punctilious about being unceremoniously elbowed and
jostled about.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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