THE FLOOR TRADER AND THE SPECIALIST 219
permitted on the trading floor itself, since they must always
remain inside the new hollow stock posts; they, of course, are
never permitted to buy or sell securities, or to exercise any of
the prerogatives of Stock Exchange membership. The spe-
cialist’s clerk simply assists his employer with the mechanical
and clerical side of the work. The clerk, for example, sorts out
incoming orders for the specialist to execute, arranging buying
orders by 4s below, and selling orders by 14s above, the cur-
rent price. Market orders and also orders limited at prices
close to the current price are turned over at once to the spe-
cialist himself. The clerk, however, can keep a loose-leaf book
in which buying orders limited at prices considerably below the
market, and selling orders limited at prices considerably above
the market, can be systematically inscribed. When the spe-
cialist has made a purchase or sale as agent for another mem-
ber, from his memorandum of sale his clerk inside the post can
speedily make out a binding report of the transaction, check it,
and dispatch it to the giver of the order.
Sometimes, in an unusual rush of business, both the spe-
cialist and his clerk or clerks may have all they can do to keep
up with the work. For such emergencies, the Stock Exchange
now provides a special force of its own floor employees solely
to assist the specialists; these Stock Exchange employees move
about from post to post, wherever trading activity is most
intense, and relieve pressure on the specialist and his clerk or
clerks by sorting out the orders which come to him. The
specialist’s clerk sometimes has a direct private telephone con-
nection with the specialist’s office, which enables misunder-
standings or confusion in regard to his work to be quickly
rectified. The Stock Exchange employees who assist special-
ists, like other Exchange floor employees, are always in uni-
form with “Specialist” marked on their sleeves ; the specialists’
own clerks within the stock posts are in ordinary civilian attire.
Undoubtedly these new facilities thus placed at the elbow
of the specialist to facilitate his work have greatly increased
