A new member who is admitted by transfer pays an initiation fee
of 2,000 gold dollars, in addition to a large fee to the transferrer,
for his "seat in the House". A member may transfer his seat to his son,
if the Committee of the Exchange approve, without charging for it;
but in all cases the transferree pays the above-mentioned initiation fee
of 2,000 gold dollars.
The prices for these seats vary, the fluctuations being due
to the upward or downward trend of the stock market. Within recent years
the price has risen considerably, and as much as 95,000 gold dollars
has been paid to the transferrer. This is much higher than the price
usually paid by new members in Stock Exchanges in Europe,
yet when a seat becomes vacant there is no lack of purchasers.
It is clear that a seat in the "House" is very valuable to the holder.
In the building each member has a stall allotted to him
where he has a telephone for his exclusive use; this enables him
to communicate every transaction done in the Exchange to his business house,
and to keep up connections with his constituents in other cities.
When one of his constituents, say in Washington, D.C.,
desires to buy a certain security the order is conveyed to him direct,
and executed without delay. I have seen a transaction of this kind
executed in ten minutes, though there was a distance of several hundred miles
between client and broker. The amount of business transacted
in the "House" every day is enormous, aggregating many millions of dollars.
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