Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-06-14
IN PAWN.

In Chickory street resides gentleman
named Lazarus Levi, Esq, whose spa
cious old-fashioned house is the reposi-
tory of various articles of property be-
longing to numberless enlightened but
distressed citizens of the United States.
The lower story of Mr.. Lewis house is
fitted up with glass front very dingy
and dusty, so that the various articles
exposed to view in the window are but
dimlv seen. There are flutes with tar
nished keys, that have lain silent for
wears. The dust lies thick on the en-
bouchure of each; for the lips that blew
therein the graduated air have shrunk
into mere skin long ago, and the agile
fingers that ran over the holes are now
loose bones, that lie here and there,
never to hang together again.
There are opera glasses, too; opera
glasses of every mode. From the an
tique species that our grandmothers used
"a single tube, short and fiat, which was
intended to be pulled out like telescope,
hut which never would pull out until the
opera was over, and only blackened the
white gloves in which the attempt was
made-down to the large and imposing
modern lorgnette with its double tubes,
and its complicated interior, and its lit
tie windlass in the centre that winds 1t
ont into a telescope or flattens it up
into pair of spectacles. How ,preg-
nant lesson lies in these opera-glasses
in the pawnbrokers window What
stories of dissipation, of fleeting wealth,
of ruined elegance they tell! Don'tyou
see the broken-down dandy, seedy, but
not vet all corrupted, darting at dusk OF
eve into the dingy shop, and with family
flushed cheek producing the remnant of
his better days? And cant you trace
him after that to the bar-room under
ground, where, amid actors and authors
and loafers, he purchases few moments
excitement with the few shillings that
hut half an hour since he obtained with
shame2 ntll
You can see all sorts of things in Mr..
Lewis window. California diamonds;
real diamonds, very rare; banjos, relics
of disappointed minstrels; guns, sugges-
tive of sporting Englishmen hard-up;
silver tea-pots, now black and uncheerful,
limiting al terrible distresses in some poor
fellow home, and making you see the
thin wife stealing out at night to raise
money on the family valuables TO feed the
children. ... ut.o .fra..l, ..a,t
The interior Of the shop is devoted to
dry goods. The details, however, can be
but dimly made out, owing to the ex-
tremely dubious light that pervades the
store. Even in broad daylight a judi
cious twilight exists in Mr., Lewis. What
the French call demi jour is much al
fected by lovers and gentlemen who
sport their Watches Through this mys-
terious atmosphere one can feebly dis
tinguish rows Of shelves, packed tightly
with dark bundles of wearing apparel.
Biddvs gown and Patrick Sunday coat
lie there together until next month
wages come to separate them. 4
Mr.. Levi is my friend. / have, occa-
sionally. mercantile transactions with
him; for am literary man, and il
sometimes happens that hnd myself
the slave of sudden necessity for five
dollars. On these occasions travel
round my room, as NJ Xavier de Mais-
tire may be supposed to have done, in
search Of some appropriate token OF es-
teen, which may convey 20 Mr.. Lew,
in order to induce him 10 advance the
required sum. In this choice II is ne