Strike Days in Wall Street.

Diversions of the Gamins in the Absence of Police.

The withdrawal of part of the usual number of patrolmen in Wall Street, for strike duty up town, and the coincident appearance of a small army of gamins and newsboys who refuse to pay the “yellow journals” and advance in selling price, gave the financial district some amusement to-day, to make up for the dulness [sic] in stocks. When the boys were gathered in Broad Street just outside the Stock Exchange, some brokers clerks in Mills building offices threw out great quantities of ticker tape, which festooned the cornices and fluttered above the heads of the usual crowd passing there. When the newsboys saw it they had great fun tearing up the streamers.

The additional litter in the roadway displeased the street-cleaners. Fortunately, their carts were at hand, and they cleared up the tape in big masses, like farm hands raking hay. Then, to finish the job, they turned on the water at a hydrant near the corner of Wall Street, where the asphalt slopes away southward. This was the opportunity of the gamin horde, who rushed in clothed, booted, and bare-footed to play in the stream. In a moment the windows of the brokers’ offices began to rain pennies, with here and there an occasional nickel. For these the boys had a grand scramble, clamoring all the time for more until the brokers finally wearied of the fun.

Source: “Strike Days in Wall Street.” Evening Post, 20 July 1899, p. 3.