Before the official hour of commencing business in the Stock Exchange has been duly announced by the old policemen's rattles sprung by the House waiters at a quarter to eleven o'clock, opening prices are already coming in from the markets, through the House clerks and the tape. The American quotations are, as a rule, more or less a matter of guesswork, and are based on the New York closing prices cabled from the other side; Home Railway lists are practically the same as those of the previous evening, and mining shares usually open as they were in the Street dealings of the night before. Thus it is on normal, ordinary days, but taking the House as a whole, there is generally some early change in the prices of some particular market caused by news contained in the morning papers. Perhaps the indefatigable locusts have been taking one of their excursion trips on one of the Argentine Rails, which causes the stocks in that section to droop; or perhaps a bumper traffic makes Grand Trunk securities advance in value; or it may be that a Mining Company has declared an unexpected dividend after hours on the preceding day, and the quotation for the shares is thereby affected. Each little detail of this description becomes magnified as the opening feature of each particular market, and the various items of news are telephoned or telegraphed to such clients as are interested in the stock itself, or in others of a similar group that may become affected by the information. The first half-hour of the day, according to tradition, should be the busiest, because of the execution of orders that have come through the post; but if markets are moving sharply, the volume of business advances with the sun, as the changes become known all over London, the Provinces, Greater Britain, and the Continent. The swing of work is fairly under way soon after eleven o'clock. The office-boys and commissionaires are pursuing the tranquil round of transfer and certificate work; the unauthorised clerks are busily wiring long strings of prices by code to brokers and clients who are not on the spot; and the authorised clerks are engaged in the execution of orders, what time the partners interview clients in the office or attend to the more important business in the House themselves.