The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-05-26
CURIOsITIEs OF CREDIT.

CURIOSITIES OF CREDIT.
examples of the Trust Underlying Busi-
ness--The Promises TO Pay of Mer-
chants and How They are Regulated I'm
the Usual Channels of Trade.
How much personal confidence has
to do with enabling the social and bust
ness life of the day to be carried on is
nowhere better shown than in con-
sideration of the system of credit which
underlies all manner of transactions.
Nothing, indeed, is more apt to be-
wilder than a casual survey, which
serves only to illustrate to how great an
extent the principle of trusting is re-
sorted to. There is quite large bust
ness done in the sale of striking cards,
illustrated with more or less taste, which
convey to the reader the information
that Poor Trust is Dead-Bad Paw
Killed Him." And when this motto
appears, accompanied by striking cut
in colors showing dead dog lying on
the ground with legs uplifted and with
piteous expression of countenance,
fixed apparently by the instantaneous
process while the animal was in the
last throes of dissolution, it is very diff
ticult for the unpractised observer to
resist the conclusion that the motto is
rigidly adhered to by the person in
whose premises the sign is displayed.
A little experience, however, shows how
much of hollow mockery the thing is
What is known to the vulgar as ''the
slate, appears everywhere in one form
or another. The record of trust changes
in character. 1t varies from the chalked
markings on the cellar door through
various grades of accounts until it
reaches its acme in big sheep-bound and
heavily ribbed volumes filled with speci-
mems of the penman's art and the
book-keeper's best skill. But the thing
chronicled is the same. 1t is q record
of trust, confidence, credit, and it
marks the bridges which cross the
points of more or less prolonged impe-
curiosity. Its variances are almost in
0umerable and some are rather extra
ordinary. To the latter class belongs
the case that was recently tried in one
of the courts of this city, wherein it APP
peared that a laundress had gone on
doing the washing for two years or
Whereabouts for a man who would have
been good customer had he but
voluntarily paid the large debtincurred.
1t is gratifying to note that a sympa-
thetic jury-forgetting all their own
trials anent burned linen, limp cuffs
and collars and hashed buttons-gave
verdict against the defendant, re-
curing him to pay for the thousands of
pieces which had been rinsed, clear
starched and mangled for him. Every
grocer, haberdasher, or other small
tradesman in a poor neighborhood, has
constant experiences in the credit line
with his neighbors, and even pailfuls of
coal and punches of greens" are not
paid for until the buyers themselves
obtain their weekly wages. And a
somewhat similar state of affairs pre-
walls in what are called higher circles,
although the matter of convenience of
payment rather than the ability to pay
is what governs there.
1t is, however, in the mercantile
world proper-the world whose horizon
is bounded by boxes and bales of goods |
sent to and from every habitable cline
that the system reaches its highest
and most notable development. Here
it is that complicated mechanism is
brought into play to give to credit its
widest range and most flexible appli-
ances. Rating agencies are employed |
to keep a record of the transactions of |
tradesmen, their liabilities and resour-
ces. 1t gets after while to be a mat
ter of calculation as to the amount for
which a purchaser shall be trusted in |
view of all his circumstances Some of
the methods by which results are ar
of clr - Al.
chinery in use for the purpose, form in
teresting features of the subject.
Promises to pay abound. The richest
house issues its paper as well as the
smallest. Brokerage establishments
have been founded, some of them with |
vi ,000,0 900 at their command, to handle |
the paper of the merchants, and there
are banks which make feature of dis |
counting the paper. One bank is known |
to have had as much as S14, 100000 of |
the paper on hand at one time, and
there are three or four which carry in |
the neighborhood of $4,000, 900 worth |
the year round. The rate of discount
by the banks is all the way from three
and one-half to twenty-five per cent,
according tothe standing of the signer,
and the broker receives one-fourth of |
one per cent. for negotiating the paper.
A merchant may draw his note for $780,
600. He wants $4,000 at once and the
remainder as soon as it is possible to OBJ
tain it. The broker advances the $10,-
900 out of his own capital and he goes
t0the bank to negotiate the note If it |
is after banking hours when the mer-
chant draws the note the $4,000 will |
enable him to promptly meet an obliga-
ton, and the need is not so urgent but
that the balance can go over until the
next day. The broker, of course, de-
ducts his $4,000 rs soon as he gets the
$4,000 less the discount, and the bank |