Page:WALL STREET IN HISTORY.djvu/100

92 and the privilege is so highly esteemed that as high as $32,000 has been paid for the opportunity to take the place of a retiring member within the past year. An excellent feature of the institution is what is known as the "Gratuity Fund," out of which the wife, children, or other nearest relatives of a deceased member are paid the sum of $10,000, to provide which each surviving member is assessed $10 upon the death of one of their number—a tax which is always paid with sympathetic readiness. This heritage of the widow and orphans of a dead member is most carefully guarded by the laws of the Exchange as a sacred trust, and is exempt from all liability for debt or claims of any kind. It is often a great blessing to the family of one who dies in comparative affluence, as it furnishes the means of providing for immediate necessities which it might take some time to obtain from the estate, while in numerous instances it has proved of inestimable benefit to young wives and children whose husband and father has been stricken down before affluence had come, or on the edge of financial disaster. Among its presidents, in the course of its career, appear such names as James W. Bleecker, John Ward, David Clarkson, W. R. Vermilye, William