The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1881-03-01
NEGLEoTING THEIR UNCLEs.
InSsrences Drawn by pawnhrokers as
10 the Prospect y of the People.
r,om the New York sun, Feb, II,

From the New 1ork Sua, FED, IL.
.There is 10 use denying that business
for pawnbrokers is very slack just now"
said a man yesterday, whose sign of the three
gold balls hangs ont near the city hall end
OF Chatham street.
Still another further up the street: "We
have paid out in the last six moaths more in
redeemed pledges than We have paid out in
loans during the same time"
He was asked if this was the result OF the
s'good times" which are popularity be-
lieved TO prevail at present, and no sup
posed i. WAS. "The months of July ard
August are always the best for our business"
he continued, 'for then people seem to get
money freely, and to spend it freely. They
spend their money for things they don't
really need. and the next week, when they
are hard up, they bring them here and pawn
them. BY winter, when ii costs more to live,
and money is not SO plenty, they have a.
ready disposed of pretty much everything
they can spare, and so they live carefully,
and we do not see their faces till summer
again. l. is q curious feature of the business
that so large proportion of our customers
pawn their possessions to crafty their tenn
porary desires. Those who from sheer ne
cessity bring their goods here come of course
pretty regularly al the year round"
As he spoke, a procession of men, some
well dressed aad of thrifty appearance, and
some collarless and overoostless, tled through
the Office, some Of them leaving coats or
watches, but quite 0s many calling for pledges
TO be redeemed. There were few women
also carrying market baskets and wearing
gray hair and csreworn faces.
"But the general prosperity" he won't on,
as he returned a cameo ring 10 a young man
who had laid down in bank notes the amount
of his loan, ''does undoubtedly keep the
working people away from here. Those who
gamble and men who in one way and an
other make and lose their money careles;ly
will always he brought 70 us in their hours
Of need. Perhaps another confirmation of
the reported good times may be found in the
fact that not oyer ten or at tho most twelve
out OF every one hundred pledges are for
feiled. If for temporary need they have
pledged articles they soon have tho money to
redeem them"
Another broker ia pledges aaid that his
customers were mostly merchants ana wan
street men temporarily stranded. just now.
however there were very fuw such gentle
men calling upon him, and he had plenty of
leisure TO attend TO some OF the more hum
bic and lowly applicants for aid.
A pawnbroker near Chatham square,
whose small and dngy shop was crowded
with miserable men and women carrying
paper bundles, admitted that his trade was
chiefly among those who were driven by
every cold wave 10 pawn more "last things"
for coal or food. But they belong to that
class Of the poor who are always present, and
whom no amount of general prosperity will
make less wretched. The severity Of the
present Writer had, he said, brought them
out in sWarms, aud his shelves were Allied
with talterad and fNded shavls and gowns,
and many other things which seemed hardly
worth claiming.