Thus, in taking a retrospect of my twenty-eight years in Wall Street, I find that what sometimes appeared to be great evils have been succeeded by compensating good, fate counter-balancing fate, as the Latin poet has it. It was so, as I have previously observed, after the panic of 1857. It was so after the convulsion of 1873, and though I have only historic evidence to guide me in regard to the earlier history of the Street, I find it was so after 1837. So, the maxim that history repeats itself has been fully verified in Wall Street. So, now that I have relapsed into a reflective mood on this subject, a host of important associations connected with the main issue rush upon me. The prominent idea that stands out in bold relief is the rapid and wonderful progress made in Wall Street during the period that I have undertaken to chronicle. And not only so, but the rapid strides that have been made in everything, almost universally, during that time, present a vast theme for consideration. The part that Wall Street men have taken in this mighty evolution is the topic that concerns me most at present. As I attempt to progress with my subject, I observe this division of it becoming more expansive, so that I find myself in the position of the Irishman when he ascended to the top of a mountain. After recovering from the first effects of his surprise, he exclaimed: “I never thought the world was so large!” So it is with me. I never thought that Wall Street was so big, nor that Wall Street affairs were so extensive, until I began to write about them. They expand, as well as improve, surprisingly on closer acquaintance. I only hope I shall be able to impress this idea more vividly on the minds of my clerical friends, and others who have been misguided in this respect, chiefly on hearsay and irresponsible evidence, and who, I am sorry to say, have been the well-meaning, but over-zealous instruments of misleading others. To come to an approximate deduction of facts, then, it is, I think, a fair estimate of the general progress of humanity, to say that there has been greater material advance in everything that relates to a higher civilization, and the greatest good to the greatest number, during the last thirty years, than in all the previous time that has elapsed since the period that the father of history, old Herodotus, began to chronicle, in his racy style, the real and imaginary events of the human family. The part that Wall Street has played in this amazing progress has been comparatively large, and would, if thoroughly investigated and fully discussed, make a larger book than I have time to write at present. I can only glance at the prominent topics and leading events in the extensive and somewhat sensational history of Wall Street, and sketch briefly the conspicuous features in the lives of certain celebrities who have been conspicuous in the history of speculation, and of those who have been prominent in the financial affairs of the country.