[109] Rule 150 reads as follows: “The committee will not fix a special settling day for bargains in shares or securities issued to the vendors, credited as full or partly paid, until six months after the date fixed for the special settlement in the shares or securities of the same class subscribed for by the public, but this does not necessarily apply to reorganizations or amalgamations of existing companies, or to cases where no public shares are issued for cash.”--Rules and Regulations of the Stock Exchange. London, June 3, 1911, pp. 64–5. [110] These figures are taken from Mr. Hirst’s Chapter VIII on “The Creation of New Debt and Capital,” pp. 212–241. [111] It should be said that at least a part of the decline in these securities had taken place before the Balkan scare became a reality. A foreknowledge of what was impending may have influenced the earlier decline; certainly the event itself accentuated and hastened it. [112] London jobbers were, in a way, instrumental in checking the furious speculation in “rubbers” toward the culmination of the boom of 1909–10. Their absolute refusal to carry rubber shares for brokers, and their concerted insistence that such shares should be paid for in full on the ensuing account day, undoubtedly put the brakes on a furious speculation, and prevented many failures. [113] The _Wall Street Journal_, November 13, 1912. [114] On the New York Stock Exchange the minimum difference between prices is one eighth and splitting of this fraction is prohibited save in the case of “rights” to subscribe or similar instances. [115] In the settling room on ticket day stocks that are not cleared pass by ticket from broker to broker in much the same way as that provided by the Clearing House. [116] Although an effort has been made in these pages to avoid complicated Stock Exchange technique, the contango, which is not fully understood in America, requires technical explanation. It may be defined as a double-bargain, in that it consists of a sale for cash of the stock previously bought which the broker does not wish to carry, and a repurchase for the new settlement two weeks ahead, of the same stock at the same price as the sale, plus interest agreed upon up to the date of that settlement. [117] The methods of transacting business on the London Stock Exchange are admirably stated in condensed form in an article by Walter Landells in the _Quarterly Review_, July, 1912, pp. 88–109, and I am indebted to his article for many of the foregoing facts, and for this brief summary of London’s booms and crises. [118] In addition to the authorities quoted in the foregoing chapter, the attention of the reader is directed to the following works having to do with the London Stock Exchange: Lombard Street, by Walter Bagehot, New York, Chas. Scribner’s, and Sons. Stocks and Shares, by Hartley Withers, London, Smith Elder, 1910. Stock Exchange Law and Practice, by W. A. Bewes, London, Sweet & Maxwell, 1910.