THE COMMISSION HOUSE 
with expert telegraphers in charge of the far-flung wires. This 
work calls for vastly more accuracy and speed than ordinary 
telegraphy, and such operators must be unusually skilled in it 
to meet satisfactorily the frequent pressure and unusual de- 
mands put upon them. Practically all such wire rooms have 
a device known as a “tell-tale,” which records all messages pass- 
ing through it. Its records are filed, and thus the responsibility 
for the rare errors which occur can quickly be determined. 
The speed with which such a wire system (including opera- 
tions on the Stock Exchange floor) works, is truly surprising, 
when its complexity and the distances it covers are remembered. 
The same authority®® quoted above cited the following 
instance : 
437 
A large New York and Chicago firm has an interesting speed 
record that has not yet been duplicated. Their correspondents in 
San Francisco sent in an order to buy a security on the New York 
Stock Exchange. The order was executed and advice of its execution 
received in San Francisco 56 seconds after it was given. 
According to the same writer, one of the large Exchange 
commission houses has in the “regular order of business” 
received orders over their Havana cable, executed them, and 
had the report of the execution back in Havana in less than a 
minute. 
Arrangement of a Wire System.—The wire house ar- 
ranges its wires much as the railroad its lines of track, so as 
to pick up along their length sufficient traffic to justify their 
expense. Hence the house places correspondents along its wire 
routes. No contract is entered into regarding the length of 
time the connection will be maintained. The wire house noti- 
fies its correspondents in the beginning of its requirements with 
regard to such matters of business between them as margin 
requirements, etc. It is, of course, usually much easier for the 
wire house in Wall Street to call its correspondents for more 
margin than its customers in or out of New York City. 
“The Nerves of Wall Street.” in Commerce and Finance, June 22, 1921. p. 880.