The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-15 00:00:00

MORNING POST.--Ina large and densely•popu

lated city like London there i'must ever be a class of
adventurers and swindlers waiting for opportunities
to plunder the unwary. Since the admirable act
for the suppression of gambling-houses, the field of
operation for this class of individuals has fortunately
been much straitened. Card-sharping and skittle-
sharping have been the chief resorts of the limited
capitalists ; but gangs of others, who have been
better able to bide their time, have set themselves
up as sham firms, baying goods by agency with
bills of exchange drawn the one upon the other.
When the time for payment arrives, the firm that
has accepted the bill of exchange is sought after in
vain, while, as a matter of course, the goods that
have been obtained by fraud are found to have been
disposed of at any sacrifice for cash. Among the
many devices that have been resorted to for robbing
the public, we may mention that of the loan-office
swindle. A case which appeared recently in our
columns is only one of many of the kind which it is
unfortunately the province of this journal, from
time to time, to chronicle. As the case in point
seems to have borne unusually hard upon the victim,
we bring it forward for the purpose of showing how
necessary it is that every one in the present day
should be on their guard against the tricks and
rascalities that abound. A man who had succeeded
in saving a sum of .£5O while exercising the profes-
sion of band. master in one of her Majesty's ships,
was anxious to invest his hard-earned gains to the
best advantage, and was caught by an advertisement
which stated that a clerk was wanted in a commer-
cial establishment, which turned out afterwards to
be a loan office, who would receive a good salary,
would require to give as a security a sum of £5O. It
must be admitted that the hook was baited with some
skill,and, as the result proved, was readily swallowed.
The advertisement having been duly answered,
and a reply received, dated from St. James's-place,
Pall-mall, an interview was fixed to take place.
The victim was made to call at the " office" where
his future services were to be engaged at a weekly
salary of 205., with a commission of one per cent.
upon all loans transacted. Nothing in the way of
detail appears to have been neglected that would
have been likely to arouse feelings of distrust in the
mind of any person anxious to obtain the desired
sir uation. The window blinds of the office—which
no doubt were got up to assume an appearance of
age, like the cheap portraits of ancestors that are
manufactured to order—had printed upon them the
imposing title of " Loan, Discount, and Deposit
Bank, established 1849." It was evidently no fault
of the outward appearance of the establishment
that but little business was transacted within it, for
it appeared in evidence that the applications for
loans were both numerous and frequent, and it must
have been almost enough to have driven the presid-
ing genius of the place frantic with grief to feel
what a thriving business he might have been driv-
ing had he been in possession only of the necessary
capital. The impossibility, however, of transacting
any business of this description without capital,
strange as it may appear, is not altogether an im-
possibility. In the first place, these loan offices
have instituted for their alleged protection a preli-
minary deposit in the shape of two guineas from
each applicant for money, which sum of two guineas
is extracted from the borrower under the name of
an " enquiry fee," for the supposed purpose of enab-
ling the firm to ascertain what degree of faith they
may place in the power of the borrower to repay
the money which they may be inclined to advance.
It is evident therefore that where the applications
for loans of money are numerous a handsome in-
come may be derived by this means alone, without
any necessity for an expenditure of capital, and there
appears nothing to prevent this part of the business
continuing to thrive until some dissatisfied appli-
cant should take upon himself the task of exposing
the system of fraud which by such a system is car-
ried on.

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