The continuation of the narrow Nassau proper south of Wall street, having all at once strangely widened, is called Broad street. During the last few years brokers and speculators of every description have crowded into its silent precincts, until it has become the most noisy and tumultuous speculative centre on the island. Here stands the elegant marble structure containing the far-famed, gorgeously furnished Gold Room, where the daily sales take place, often amid such excitement and din as we cannot describe. The Board of Brokers was organized in 1794, and the entrance fee has risen from fifty dollars to three thousand. The Board numbers about four hundred and seventy members in good standing. Each member has a safe in the vault, with a combination lock. The Board claims to be composed of honest and honorable men only. Besides this there are various other specific boards of all kinds of speculators—stock-brokers gold-brokers, oil-brokers, and cliques—uniting and dissolving as occasion may offer opportunities of gain to ambitious and unscrupulous men. Among these originate the gold scrambles, the railroad wars, the raid on the banks, and other panics which crowd the streets with well-dressed, but frenzied men, some flushed and violent, some pale and staggering, turning prematurely gray over the wreck of their earthly hopes.