et the demolition of the
graceful money temples occupied by three of these corporations on the
north side of Wall Street. In each of them the entablature rested upon
two fluted stone pillars with Doric capitals, in addition to the
supports of the side walls. Between the steps and the doors of the
temple extended a marble-paved court which often served as a
convenient place of 'change for borrowers and lenders. Entering the
doors you found yourself in a large, airy, dome-lighted room, the
sides of which were occupied by the clerks of the institution, guarded
by high barricades from the intrusive eyes and feet of the general
public. At the rear were the offices of the president and cashier.
Throughout the entire building there reigned a solemn and
semi-religious silence. One may witness something like this to-day in
the Wall-Street end of the U. S. Treasury Building, and only there.

Up to the epoch of the rise of railway building and railway-share
speculation, the main aliment of Wall-Street banks was the profit
derived from the discount of commercial paper and from loans upon
government and State securities. But when railway shares and bonds,
based upon lines of road which were constructed through the rich
regions of the Union lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi
river, came upon the market in large amounts, affording ample security
for investment and loans, the great banks of Wall Street were quick to
appreciate the advantages of loans made upon such undoubted values,
which were at all times convertible into cash on the stock exchange.
In times of pressure, commercial paper is an inferior asset for a
bank, all of whose obligations are payable on demand. At such times
notes become practically unsalable, and are not always paid at
maturity. A failure of one firm brings down others, and renewals are
urgently required from banks just when they are least able to grant
them. Salable securities are on such occasions an ark of safety, and,
dating from the early fifties, this class of securities has always
been the basis of a large amount of the loans of the banks of Wall
Street and their near neighbors of the same class in lower Nassau
Street and also Broadway.

With the immense outgrowth of business consequent upon the discovery
of gold in California in 1849, and the construction of the great
railways of the Middle West, such as the Michigan Southern, the
Northern Indiana (now the Lake Shore), the Michigan Central