One important respect in which the London Stock Exchange differs from all others--American, Continental, or Provincial--is the division of its members into two classes, jobbers and brokers, a division that appears to be as old as the Exchange itself. As to which of these classes it is better to belong there are differences of opinion, but the wise men in the business seem to be a unit in recommending a few years’ experience as a broker to be followed by the business of the jobber. The broker, under the London system, deals with the outside public and acts merely as agent between the public and the jobber, with whom he trades on the floor of the Exchange. The jobber, on his part, is not allowed to deal with the public at all, but must confine his activities to the brokers and to his fellow jobbers. “Thus the broker,” as Mr. Hirst puts it, “feeds the jobber much as the solicitor feeds the barrister,” or, continuing the metaphor, we may say that like the barrister the jobber gets the _cause célêbre_ and all the great prizes, and like the solicitor the broker hunts up the business and must be content with small returns. The broker works for his commission; the jobber for what he can get out of the trade in the way of a profit. The system in vogue in the New York Stock Exchange would seem to possess many advantages over this curious division of functions between the two classes. Here, as every one knows, brokers are not restricted in their operations; the field is alike open to all members, and the market is not limited by placing it in the hands of any one man or any group of men. On the London Exchange the attempt to define strict dividing lines between brokers and jobbers has not been successful; for years there has been a strong undercurrent of resentment between them because of acts which each regards as encroachments by the other upon its especial domain. The quarrel reached an acute stage in the paralysis that hit the Stock Exchange after the South African war; there were too many members and too little business. Brokers took it upon themselves to make prices and to deal directly with other brokers and with outsiders, disregarding the jobbers altogether; and jobbers in turn sought in self-defence to establish connections of their own, outside the Stock Exchange, and with non-members. Both parties have violated the spirit, if not the letter of the Stock Exchange rules, and even at the present time, when much stricter rules have been passed defining the limitations of each division, the same unfortunate feeling of resentment is heard daily. Violations of the rule, however technical, are bound to create friction, and friction among the members of a Stock Exchange is not a good thing for the members nor for the business. Fortunately, there is nothing of that sort in the New York Exchange.