a vote ’that nothing can tend more to the establishment of public credit than preventing the infamous practice of stock-jobbing’; and also passing at the same time an Act enabling persons who had been sufferers thereby to obtain an easy and speedy redress.[#] In spite of this the brokers contrived to thrive to such an extent that they found it necessary to take a more commodious room in Threadneedle Street, to which admission was obtained on payment of sixpence. The Bank Rotunda was at one period the place where bargains in stocks were made; but there the brokers were as great a nuisance as they had been at the Royal Exchange, and were turned out. It was then they took the room in Threadneedle Street, and in the year 1799 they raised £12,150 in 1,263 shares of £50 each, and purchased a site in Capel Court, comprising Mendoza’s boxing-room and debating forum and buildings contiguous, on which the present Stock Exchange was erected, and opened in 1801. Capel Court was so called from the London residence of Sir William Capel, Lord Mayor of London in 1504. Within the last decade the building has been considerably enlarged and beautified. [#] An Act passed in 1734 forbade time bargains under a penalty of £500 on brokers and their clients, and of £100 for contracting for the sale of stock of which the person was not possessed. Both these statutes were repealed circa 1860. Stockbrokers are supposed to lead very harassed and restless lives—yes, if they speculate on their own account and with their own money, a folly which no experienced broker ever thinks of committing. He speculates for other people, and with their money, and, well, if before the official hour of opening—viz., eleven o’clock—a chance presents itself of a deal with a customer’s stock on the broker’s account, by which a little benefit accrues to the latter, the customer knows nothing about it, and what you are ignorant of does not hurt. The broker is, in this respect, very much like the lawyer. Neither the broker nor the lawyer can be expected to share their clients’ anxieties concerning investments or disputed interests, and they don’t. When either of them leaves his office for his suburban villa or Brighton breezes, he leaves all thoughts of business behind him in the office, considering that the freedom from care he enjoys at home is honestly earned, and no doubt it is—in his estimation.