Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1895-05-14
MAKE SMALL LOANS.
MEN WHO ADVANCE MONEY TO
WAGEWORKERS AT HIGH RATES.

Bank Clerks Pay Interest For Advances
Made by Associates Who Are Not So
Thriftless-How Some Men Get Rich.
Winter is the busy season of the pawn
brokers and other money loaners on per-
Sonal property. The man who has been q
student in the summer schools of IMPROVE
dence goes to his uncle at the sign of the
three balls or elsewhere and recites his les
Bons.
The pawnbrokers probably do the most
of this class of business, but there are 9TH
ers who do very large proportion of it.
Every large printing Office in the city, for
instance, has at least one man in it who
will accommodate his fellows for u good
per cent with the printers "string" as
security. The printer gives the money
loaner the proof slips of the type he has
set pasted in one long string" and the
man of means shayes it, just as a banker
shaves note, only more So He cuts so
deep, in fact, that the unfortunate who
resorts to him once is often forced to keep
on going to him. He loses so much of
what he has earned after few contacts
with his friend of the dollar that he finds
it an increasingly difficult task to catch
up and start even with the world again.
For this and the natural antipathy be-
tween man and the money loaner the I'M
Gle of the printing Office is seldom as pop
ular as his general personal attractions
might otherwise entitle him to be. The
money loanor is not looked upon as is the
doctor, who profits by our carolessness and
imprudonCe of another sort, nor as the
lawyer is who grows fat on our unbroth-
erly quarrols and disputes. There is
feeling that not the money loaner's knowl-
edge or skill is earning anything, but his
insensate dollars. Then there is a tacit
confession Of weakness in going to him at
all. His prosperity is a standing proof of
our folliCs.
1t is therefore considered rather credta-
Bile than otherwise to circumvent and
cheat him. Sometimes this is done by in
sorting cold dupe" in tho string-that
is to say, the printer puts in proof of
matter he didn't set along with proofs of
matter which is rightfully his-but by the
time tho pay day arrives and the banker
comes to cash the string the printer has
left town thereby, as did the austere indi-
vidual in the Scriptures, reaping where he
has not sown.
If tho money loaner is not printer, but
does business outside the office as money
loaner pure and simple, he is completely
beyond the pale, and, according to the I'M
written code, it is lawful to trip up and
discomft him by any style of gin or pit
fall which ingenuity can devise. For eX-
ample, a printer who is well known in all
the Chicago offices went to a ShylOck and
offered to place money among the printers
on the security of their strings and prom
iscd per centum which might have Tempt
ed even less willing dollars out of their
strong boxes He secured $500, which he
promptly lost on the races. He went back,
frankly confessed and induced the Shylock
to try him again. To prevent the posi-
bility of another misadyenture he would
bring the borrowers to the loan Office and
would personally vOuoh for their standing.
Yet tho losses arc few and small COM
pared with the gains of this amateur bank
ing business. A man who is in the bust
ness any length of time soon learns the
curves of tho men with whom he has to
deal Ono man who has been loaning
money to his fellow printers in Chicago for
20 years owns several houses on the North
Side and has other real estate He is said
to be worth 500, 900.
Whenever men come together in great
bodies there arise among them a few
shrewd individuals who profit by the
thriftlessness of their fellows. In every
large telegraph office there is at least one
man out of the general mass of IMPROVE
dents who has money when the rest have
none, and for a consideration this money
PUSHES to fill the vacuum in the pockets Of
the needy. The practice is frowDod down
theoretically, but in reality the superin-
tendent or the foreman, as the case may
be, doesn't know one man from another
when it comes to cashing vouchers.
Among the printers, the operators and
in large factories some one of the en-
ployecs accommodates the rest, but among
railroad and lake men this perquisite falls
to the boarding house boss. The boarding
house is the only place in which the men
ever assemble where money loaning could
be practiced. The disburser for the cor
poration by whom the men arc employed
is supposed to pay money only to the man
who has earned it or to his wife upon his
written order, but if an order in the hands
of his boarding house keeper is accom-
panied by written. statement that he is
sick the voucher will be paid. Neither
will the railroads functiOnary pursue the
subject with superfluous questions If the
boarding house boss will make it to his
interest not to do so. And where is the
boarding house keeper, male or female
who is not a diplomatist?
One might suppose that if any class of
young men could grasp the important idea
Of the true value of money it would be
tho bank clerks. 1t might be inferred
that, being familiar with the strict bust
ness methods of these great financial ma
chimes and being held to the strictest ac-
count in the handling of other mems
money, the clerk would be careful of his
own. But he is not. Probably no other
class of young men are so familiar with
the science of money culture or could give
you so many valuable ideas as to the farm
ing out of funds. Yet, with money as with
other things, familiarity seems to breed
contempt. Unless he has a natural turn
for it the bank clerk will be no better con-
servator Of his own resources than, say,
the dry goods clerk down the street.
Money loaners, like poets, are born and
not made. AS a result, among the bank
clerks there is an aspiring young soul here
and there who prospers steadily on the adj
Versities of his companions One of them
Is known in every bank in town for his in
tollectual gifts in this direction He never
loans money at usurious rate, but he