The institution undoubtedly possesses the distinction of being the most athletic body of business men in the whole world--when it walks it sets the world a-walking. It holds its own small race meeting every year, furnishes county cricket captains, international football players, and so on.
It is doubtful, however, whether the members enjoy these organised forms of sport more than they enjoy the impromptu games within the walls of the House itself on slack afternoons, with all the practical jokes which are found for idle hands to do. Cricket with walking-sticks and paper balls, football with a tall hat, a lighted newspaper under the seat of a dozing jobber, sweepstakes and raffles, a labelled back--all these things are common enough. Sometimes the spirit of play is closely linked with the spirit of business; when, for instance, a susceptible member is induced by his conspiring friends to deal in Chartered Second Debentures, or some other stock which does not exist, only to find, when he has made something like a fortune or half ruined himself, that all bargains are of necessity off. The Stock Exchange has many fixed holidays during the year--they include not only all the Bank Holidays, but also the first days of January, May, and November--and some unfixed holidays on summer Saturdays, but the members do not await official leave to play.
The institution has its own Orchestral and Choral Society of about 200 members, which has been established twenty years, gives a series of subscription concerts each season, and is quite an acknowledged factor in the musical world. There is an Art Society, also a Christian Association, with a roll of members comprising some 250 names; and in the Christian attribute of charity the members of the Stock Exchange as a body are ever to the fore. Beginning at home, there is a Benevolent Fund as old as the Stock Exchange itself, for the benefit of members who fall upon troublous times. It has a capital of nearly a quarter of a million sterling, and an annual income which, although it varies in accordance with the prosperity of the times, has recently been over £20,000. There is also a Stock Exchange Clerks' Provident Fund that has been in existence about forty years, its income of about £2,000 a year comprising the subscriptions of those clerks who are members of the fund, and donations and subscriptions by members of the Stock Exchange. There are about 1,500 members, and grants are made from the fund in out-of-employment cases, in cases of illness and of death, and when there are any special calls.
