PAWNBROKERS.
The sign of the three gilt balls is very common in the Great City, and where the ancient badge of the pawnbroker is not seen, the words "Exchange Office" answer the same purpose. The law recognizes the fact that in all large communities, these dealers are a necessary evil, and while tolerating them as such, endeavors to interpose a safeguard in behalf of the community, by requiring that none but persons of good character and integrity shall exercise the calling. In New York, the Mayor alone has the power of licensing them, and revoking their licenses, and none but those so licensed can conduct their business in the city. "But Mayors of all cliques and parties have exercised this power with, apparently, little sense of the responsibility which rests upon them. They have not, ordinarily at least, required clear proof of the integrity of the applicants; but have usually licensed every applicant possessed of political influence. There is scarcely any instance where they have revoked a license thus granted, even when they have been furnished, with proofs of the dishonesty of the holders." [footnote: Report of the Prison Association.]
As a consequence, the pawnbrokers of the city are, with a few exceptions, a most rascally set. They are little more than receivers of stolen goods. The police frequently trace stolen property to them. Upon one occasion a whole basket of watches was found in one of these establishments. Another possessed a diamond worth over seven hundred dollars, which had been pawned for two dollars and a half. It had been stolen by a servant girl.
Goods taken to these men are received by them without question. They advance a fraction of the value of the article which is to be redeemed at a certain time at a high rate of interest. If not redeemed, the article is sold. Some of these dealers do not wait for the expiration of the time when an article of value is concerned, but sell it at once, and flatly deny ever having received it. The rate at which all articles are taken is sufficiently low to render it certain that the sale of it will more than cover the advance.
The principal customers of these men are the poor. Persons of former respectability or wealth, widows and orphans, are always sure to carry with them into their poverty some of the trinkets that were theirs in the heyday of prosperity. These articles go one by one to buy bread. The pawnbroker advances not more than a twentieth part of their value, and haggles over that. He knows full well that the pledges will never be redeemed, that these unhappy creatures must grow less able every day to recover them. Jewelry, clothing, ornaments of all kinds, and even the wedding ring of the wife and mother, come to him one by one, never to be regained by their owners. He takes them at a mere pittance, and sells them at a profit of several hundred per cent.
You may see the poor pass into the doors of these shops every day. The saddest faces we ever saw were those of women coming away from them. Want leaves its victims no choice, but drives them mercilessly into the clutches of the pawnbroker.
The majority of the articles pawned are forced there by want, undoubtedly, but very many of them go to buy drink. Women are driven by brutal husbands to this course, and there are wretches who will absolutely steal the clothing from their shivering wives and little ones, and with them procure the means of buying gin. God help them all, the sinner and the sinned against.