What is of especial interest to a Wall Street man who looks over the enormous list of London’s Stock Exchange securities is the function and method of the Listing Committee that has to pass on all these concerns before admitting them to the House. In New York the Stock Exchange’s “Committee on Stock List” insists that the applicant company must be able to show at least one year’s earnings--a most important condition. In London somewhat different conditions prevail. The committee looks into the bona fides of an applicant company and makes inquiries concerning the people behind it, but it does not require that it shall have done business for at least a year and show a year’s earnings, because if that were insisted upon as a condition precedent, the banks would not finance it, nor the public support it. They have no “curb market” in London where a new company may pass through a seasoning or preparatory period while awaiting admission to the Stock Exchange, and as a settlement day with Stock Exchange authority is rigorously insisted upon by those who provide the funds, it follows that companies must be admitted at least to “official settlement” privileges as soon as they are organized. One point upon which the London Exchange authorities lay great weight in the admission of new securities, consists in obtaining assurances that a sufficient number of shares has been allotted to the public before admission is granted. This is a thoroughly wise precaution, designed to prevent corners and, as far as possible, improper manipulation. Another very interesting, and I may say, a very wise precautionary measure of the London method of listing, is the prohibition placed upon vendor’s shares--a plan that might well be adopted in New York. In London, for example, a vendor--i. e., a seller of the property--who receives shares in consideration of the sale, cannot have his shares listed until six months have elapsed after shares of the company have been offered to the public. The protection afforded the public by this plan is obvious, and requires no further comment.[109] If the London share certificates required, as in New York, only a simple endorsement for transfer, much of the annoyance and confusion that sometimes takes place would be avoided. The market for mining shares, for example, had until 1888 only a very small place in the London Stock Exchange, but the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand changed all that, and by 1894 the number of brokers engaged in handling mining shares actually exceeded those in any other department. It was found necessary to provide a special day--one day before the regular settlement commenced--for carrying over bargains in mines, but owing to the fact that mining shares, like nearly all securities in London, were “registered” and not “to bearer,” the clearing house was taxed beyond its powers by the immense volume of work thrown upon it, and once or twice it broke down completely.