It is doubtful, however, whether the members enjoy these organised forms
of sport more than they enjoy the impromptu games within the walls of
the House itself on slack afternoons, with all the practical jokes which
are found for idle hands to do. Cricket with walking-sticks and paper
balls, football with a tall hat, a lighted newspaper under the seat of a
dozing jobber, sweepstakes and raffles, a labelled back--all these
things are common enough. Sometimes the spirit of play is closely linked
with the spirit of business; when, for instance, a susceptible member is
induced by his conspiring friends to deal in Chartered Second
Debentures, or some other stock which does not exist, only to find, when
he has made something like a fortune or half ruined himself, that all
bargains are of necessity off. The Stock Exchange has many fixed
holidays during the year--they include not only all the Bank Holidays,
but also the first days of January, May, and November--and some unfixed
holidays on summer Saturdays, but the members do not await official
leave to play.
The institution has its own Orchestral and Choral Society of about 200
members, which has been established twenty years, gives a series of
subscription concerts each season, and is quite an acknowledged factor
in the musical world. There is an Art Society, also a Christian
Association, with a roll of members comprising some 250 names; and in
the Christian attribute of charity the members of the Stock Exchange as
a body are ever to the fore. Beginning at home, there is a Benevolent
Fund as old as the Stock Exchange itself, for the benefit of members who
fall upon troublous times. It has a capital of nearly a quarter of a
million sterling, and an annual income which, although it varies in
accordance with the prosperity of the times, has recently been over
£20,000. There is also a Stock Exchange Clerks' Provident Fund that has
been in existence about forty years, its income of about £2,000 a year
comprising the subscriptions of those clerks who are members of the
fund, and donations and subscriptions by members of the Stock Exchange.
There are about 1,500 members, and grants are made from the fund in
out-of-employment cases, in cases of illness and of death, and when
there are any special calls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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