The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-08-13
CHATTEL MORTGAGE.
How It Has Become One Of Our
Institutions.
.Over $4,000 Mortgages Recorded In Chi
cago i'm Six Months-Good Times
Favorable to Money Lenders
Buying Furniture ON
1nstallments.

BY insensible degrees the chattel
mortgage, has established itself as an
institution and has come to be looked
on with some degree of complacency if
not confidence. The startling announc-
ment in a recent issue of Bradstreet's
that chattel mortgages had doubled in
Chicago during the last six weeks, led a
reporter to investigate for himself
whether these things were so," and to
consider whether the causes assigned BY
the commercial authority quoted were
to be received as the true solution of
the problem, or whether explanation
was to be looked for deeper beneath the
surface. Bradstreet's claims that the
poverty resulting from the recent strikes,
lockouts, and labor troubles is mainly
accountable for the increase seems at
first thought TO be so obviously reason
able and satisfactory, that to look for
other causes of any thing like equal i'm
portance might fairly be considered
presumptuous and vain; but a searching
ANALYSIS of the evidence furnished BY
the chattel mortgage indexes and from
books in the recorders Office, backed
by the testimony of business experts,
goes to show that other subtler and less
obvious factors have played no incon-
siderable part in swelling up the mort
gage legiOns. An examination of the
chattlc mortgage indexes showed that
12.164 chattcl mortgages were recorded
during the first six months of 1885,
while the number recorded during the
same period of 1886 had increased to
5,163. Is this increase of twenty-five
per cent. to be accounted for almost
entirely by the poverty arising from the
labor troubles, with some slight allow
ance for the increase of the population
thrown in?
NO" answered shrewd and ex-
'perienced chattelmortgage man, that's
no satisfactory explanation. We make
more and better loans in good times
than in bad. In fact, in bad times
there's not nearly so much demand for
borrowing money, because we're very
chary about lending money then at all.
It's the unprecedented increase in the
number. of men going into the furniture
installment-plan business that's piling
up the mortgages. For one man that
was in that business about two years
ago. there are four or five in
it now, and mulitudes of people
who two or three years ago
would have spurned the idea of
buying furniture on time now take quite
kindly to the arrangement Take my
rr,r.l Coz Il tho b;cr inorooso ~, obo<tol
mortgages this year is infinitely more
due to the remarkable extension of the
time system than the hard times that
we're passing through. One reason
why so many are going into the bust
ness is that no license il required, as in
the case of a pawnbroker, and between
YOU and me we're drawing off lot of
the business from these latter. Why,
bless you, you've no conception of the
number of men that come to me for
loans on their gold watches and dia-
monds. instead of going TO their uncle
They've more confidence that l won't
do any of the sweating work that their
uncle is so well up to. Sweating?
Why, don't you catch on? That means
taking $40 or $50 out of gold watch
by substituting an inferior movement,
or extracting that amount of gold out
of the case in some mysterious way un-
known to me. The same with dia-
monds. They'll collar your brilliant
and return you your ring with faulty
stone. and that makes it almost value
less.
Another point to be considered in
your calculations, said the now chatty
-chaftel-mortgage man, sis that five
mortgages are now being recorded for
one about a couple Of years ago.
Money-loaners have at last tumbled to
the fact that their only protection from
knavery lies in the recording of every
mortgage, however small. Men in the
business who nefer used to think of re-
cording mortgage for less than $500
now record every thing from $40 up.
This practice is largely the growth of
the last year, and the reason for it is
very plain. Suppose you take $3.50
worth of furniture from Mr.. Brown. and
give him mortgage on it. You know
by hearsay that he is not in the habit of
recording his mortgage, and, having
satisfied yourself from the records that
he has pursued his usual course in your
case, you come to me for loan on the
furniture. Imake you the loan and put
the mortgage which you grant on
record. Now. if you fail in your pay
ments the law protects me in foreclosing
the mortgage and Selling the furniture
for the simple reason that l had the pru-
dence to record the mortgage. Mr..
Brown, to whom the furniture rightly
belongs, can whistle for what he ever
gets out of it. having no legal standing