433
nificant, however, that the Constitution of the Exchange con-
tains the following provision :*®
THE COMMISSION HOUSE
The acceptance and carrying of an account for a customer, whether
a member or a non-member, without proper and adequate margin, may
constitute an act detrimental to the interest and welfare of the
Exchange.
Safeguarding the Broker’s “Box.”—From the foregoing
description of a single customer’s experience with his broker-
age house, as well as from what has already been said concern-
ing the general machinery of the Stock Exchange in earlier
chapters, a fair idea can be obtained of the daily routine of a
typical Wall Street commission house. One picturesque fea-
ture of this routine, however, remains to be mentioned. Many
Exchange houses, because of their unwillingness to leave
security certificates of considerable value “in the box” in their
offices overnight, rent safe deposit vaults from the New York
Stock Exchange Safe Deposit Company in the basement of the
Stock Exchange building,* or from other safety deposit com-
panies. Before the opening of the market each morning, em-
ployees of Exchange houses may be seen, followed by their
guards, removing from the Broad Street entrance to the Safe
Deposit Company’s vaults the heavy steel boxes of their firms
containing the securities belonging to them, their partners, and
their customers. And later on, after the Exchange has closed
and business for the day is over, they return with their closely
guarded burdens, and redeposit them in the vaults for the
night.
The Stock Exchange was originally created to provide a
free and open organized securities market where the American
public could purchase and sell the leading American stocks and
bonds. For over a century it has rendered indispensable eco-
nomic services to the whole nation. Without the facilities pro-
vided by the Exchange houses for executing the orders of the
public, the present broad and continuous securities market on
2 gee Gonstitution (Rules, Chapter XIT)
