CHAPTER XIII.

STOCKS AND STOCK EXCHANGE.

Constitution of the London Stock Exchange-Issue of Stocks and Shares -Bond and Share Certificates-Descriptions of Bonds and SharesDividend and Bonus-Government Funds and other SecuritiesSystem of Stock Exchange Operations.

Stocks and Shares.-A stock exchange is a place where business men meet daily for the purchase and sale of stocks and shares.

Both the sums of money invested in the national debts of a state, properly called the funds, and the separate credits warranted by governments, town corporations, trading companies, or other corporate bodies, paying a fixed annual rate of interest for the loan, are generally described as stocks. Shares, on the contrary, represent the equal portions into which the capital of a joint-stock company is divided, and the consequent right of the owner to a corresponding portion of the company's profits.

The London Stock Exchange.-The Stock Exchange belongs to a private association, whose members are either jobbers or brokers, no person extraneous to the business being ever admitted.

A jobber is a merchant who buys and sells funds, stocks or shares on his own account and risk, while a broker is merely a buyer or a seller for the account and risk of his principal.

The operations of the Exchange are transacted under the control of a special committee elected by the