Title:
Nothing to See in San Francisco (1946)

Author:
Anthony Trollope

Publisher:
Colt Press

Place:
1870's Stock Exchange in San Francisco

Read by:
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Registered by:
User:Anderssl

The novelist Anthony Trollope, who travelled the world and wrote about his journeys, in 1876 wrote the following text about San Francisco. Apparently he didn't like the city much, essentially saying that the only thing worth seeing was the stock exchange - which opened just that year in a building on the south side of Pine street, just east of Montgomery. The building burned down in the fire after the great 1906 earthquake.

I was taken to visit the stock-brokers' Board in San Francisco,­ that is the room in which mining shares are bought and sold. The trader should understand that in California, and, still more, in the neighboring State of Nevada, gold and silver mining are now very lively. The stock-jobbing created by these mines is carried on in San Francisco and is a business as universally popular as was the buying and selling of railroad shares during our railway mania. Everybody is at it. The housemaid of whom I have spoken as earning £70 per annum, buys Consolidated Virginia or Ophir stock with that money; - or perhaps she prefers Chollar Potosi, or Best and Belcher, or Yellow Jacket, or Buckeye. She probably consults some gentleman of her acquaintance and no doubt in 19 cases out of 20 loses her money. But it is the thing to do, and she enjoys that charm which is the delectation of all gamblers. Of course in such a condition of things there are men who know how the wind is going to blow, who make the wind blow this way and that, who can raise the price of shares by fictitious purchases, and then sell, or depreciate them by fictitious sales and then buy. The housemaids and others go to the wall, while the knowing men build palaces and seem to be troubled by no seared consciences. In the mean time the brokers drive a roaring trade,­ whether they purchase legitimately for others or speculate on their
own account.
The Stock Exchange in London is I believe closed to strangers. The Bourse in Paris is open to the world and at a certain hour affords a scene to those who choose to go and look at it of wild noise, unintelligible action, and sometimes apparently of demoniac fury. The uninitiated are unable to comprehend that the roaring herd in the
pen beneath them are doing business. The Stock Exchange Board in San Francisco is not open to strangers, as it is in Paris, but may be visited with an order, and by the kindness of a friend I was admitted. Paris is more than six times as large as San Francisco; but the fury at San Francisco is even more demoniac than at Paris. I thought that the gentlemen employed were going to hit each other between the eyes,
and that the apparent quarrels which I saw already demanded the interference of the police. But the uproarious throng were always obedient, after slight delays, to the ringing hammer of the Chairman and as each five minutes' period of internecine combat was brought to an end, I found that a vast number of mining shares had been
bought and sold. Perhaps a visit to this Chamber, when the stockbrokers are at work between the hours of eleven and twelve, is of all sights in San Francisco, the one best worth seeing.