A GIGANTIC PAWN SHOP

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3212, 30 May 1871, Page 3

A GIGANTIC PAWN SHOP

The Paris correspondent of the "Times" writes regarding the Mont de Piete as follows : — During the siege no one was allowed to borrow more than s()f on any article, no matter what its value might be. In spite of this, the pressure for money was so great that the stove-rooms of the Mont de Piete became encumbered with articles, which 150,000 persons of all classes brought and pledged. I made a most interesting inspection of these immense storehouses of private property a few days ago, and walked through labyrinths of stored jewelry, each little box colored and numbered according to its year, all the even numbers indicating one year, and the odd numbers another. Here were no fewer than 100,000 watches and 85,000 clocks. There were diamond necklaces and bracelets of fabulous taluo, which bad lain for many years, and which were pledged anew every year, that had glittered, nevertheless, on the arms and necks of their owners at every Imperial ball and on every State occasion, when they were hired fromt he Imperial pawnbroker for the night. Here, too, were evidences of the more real distress to which persons of rank had been reduced — one piece of lace after the other, the last cashmere shawl, or a pocket handkerchief embroidered with a coronet, of such fine material that it was still possible to raise 3 f, the lowest figure allowed, upon it; gentleman's goldheaded canes, seven ordinary riding whips, and no fewer than 2000 opera glasses. Here was an umbrella, the pawn ticket of which had been renewed every year since 1812, and a silk dress, the owner of which for the last 28 years had been unable to redeem if, but had regularly raised the portion of her annual income which it represented. Here were unwritten romances staring at one from the eyes of pawned pictures, and dreadful family secrets loked up in jewel boxes. This quarter of the establishment was what might be called the Faubourg St. Germain of the Montde Piete. When we went into the Belleville quarter the objects were very different. No fewer than 2300 poor wretches had pawned their mattresses, and starving seamstresses had pawned 1500 pairs of scissors. Spades, shovels, teapots, without end. How many necessaries to existence were stored away in these cruel galleries ! How different the story they told from those of the fashionable deposits below ! Not much of the romantic or the myslciious here ; very little loft to the imagination — the gaunt secret, frowning on us from every loaded shelf — starvation !