THE POOR MAN'S BANK.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12259, 9 June 1914, Page 7

THE POOR MAN'S BANK.

EXPERIENCES AS A PAWNER

(By Clarence Rook.)

We were talking after dinner, a few men, brought from various corners, of :time arid space —talking of matters of finance, and suddenly the youngest talker, who came from the "other side," announced that in his particular province of Manitoba there are no pawnshops. You can't nawn anything but real.estate, which will not fit into the shelves of a shop. " . "What a horrible place," laughed the man 'from China, and he gave a swift picture of the' Chinese pawnshops that tower' with their-contents, a coimtry where everybody has something, in pawn to somebody else. And then a quiet Englishman averred that he always pawned his fur coat in April and got it: out in November, because —you will [perceive, -the economy of the scheme; —they, had to see it didn't get moth-eate'nv And if you borrowed a sovereign on. it, that was. chefao storage. , .... -. ■

We were not tjuite sure, even when we parted, as ta the' interior economies, whether:the absence of pawnshops in Manitoba or thejr towering preponChina were the.sign of prosperity or whether in London a sudden question had excited the fact that each man of 'the'party had pawned something in London. My own experience as a pawner is moderate, but pleasant. I had once, as a student in Leipzig'very hard up, to pack my dress clothes in a bag and take them'to'an obscure' Jew to get 13s for University fees. Then there came the invitation to the dance. The Jewtrusted me. He let out my dress Ict-ot'hes for 6d on. condition " that I brought them back next clay. • I. having danced, the courtesy was returned, and—well, you may reckon out what percentage was charged on my honor to restore a dress suit, hypothecated, borrowed, returned-within 24 hours. THE QUEST OF THE RING.

But as a pawner I am a wretched instance. JYly only, modern attempt was to get rid of a bicycle. The conscientious clerk wouldn't take it unless I could produce the receipt, though I pointed the finger across the road where I had bought and paid for it. He didn't want it-. If it had-been a ring.' Ah! If it had been a ring. For the .quest of the ring.came with the demand of a friend who was in Paris and had pawned a valuable ring somewhere in the King's-road, Chelsea. Tickets were lost, address forgotten. But it was somewhere in the King's-road. I set out for the quest of the ring, and found that the King's-road is a pretty long one—you know what isn't meant of "pretty." That journey from one end to the'other of the King'sroad, stopping at every pawnshop on the wav, cost me a day's exercise, and for the" first time I counted the publichouses against the pawnshops in a London . thoroughfare that can count its length ' in miles, and the pawnshop? achieved a surprising record. It should be added that I found that ring and rescued it from the honest custody of a-■ young man in a sort of sentry-box, who seemed to be a cross between a. Bank of England manager and a detective. He wore a pin over his thorax with a diamond in it. And in my imaginative ignorance j I supposed he had got it out the shop. For the shop—you must have observed the front of the pawnbroker's shop which is so different from the secreted boxes at- the side-coffers you the most surprising bargains. . You can anything from a flat iron to a pair of opera- glasses or full set of dinner plate's or a picture—such pictures! At the front and in the window the diamonds glitter. There is also a notice prevalent among the pawnbrokers that "plate and cutlery are lent on hire." the plate and cutlery are disposed most alluringly in the windows, and obviouslv" somebody has discovered that ready-money is better than gilver-plate and "someone else has discovered that silver-plate brings ready-money.

MYSTERIES OF FINANCE;

It is all a mystery of high and low finance, for the pawnbroker is doing for the poor exactly what the bank is doing for the rich. There are, lanl told, occasions on which a bank will lend a trader —as an overdraft —a sum of monev on the mere stake of personal honor, just as the Jew trusted me for sixpence on my bare word to return him *mv dress clothes tomorrow moru,ing. The whole world of trade is built, 'it seems, on banks which are glorified pawnshops, with bits of paper as securities, and an occasional access of confidence in the honor of a man who means to meet his hills and beat them. ...

But the rich man's bank, with its occasional and cataclysmic collapses, has not the perfect security of the.poor man's bank which dots the streets of London. What is the weight of a bit of paper against that of a flat-iron? — a weighty, necessary, ponderable thing, that has its value —estimated rightly bv the pawnbroker. " The poor man's hanker makes no. mistakes, or at least, if he does, he is no competent pawnbroker. He has the leal right to charge 25 per cent, on his loan, and he has absolute security, because he holds the goods and never lends more than he chooses. And he never charges less than 25 per cent, on a loan with the security he puts in his store. There is one little difference between the financial firms and the pawnbroker, in that the former are dealing with" the men who are doubling the value of their loans, and the latter are chaffering with men who are halving them. But the pawnbroker is on velvet. I cannot conceive a pawnbroker in 'the liankruptcy court. His security is on his shelves, and if he has eyes in his head, he never accepts anything—such as my bicycle—that no one could ever want again. Whether the prevalence of the pawnbroker—or the banker—is encouraging I cannot tell. Whether Manitoba or China- or London is in the best case. But that journey down the King's-road. Chelsea, just reminded me that some years ago a Jewish pawnbroker saved me from social disaster in the price of sixpence. My dress clothes were of the best. ■•'".'