The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-06-18
MAKE SMALL LOANS.
MEN WHO ADVANCE MONEY TO
WAGEWORkERS AT HIGH RATES.


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 a
| student In the summer schools of improvi-
dence goes to his uncle at the sign of the
three balls or elsewhere and recites his les
| sons
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 "a 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 shaves it, just as 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 a few contacts
with his friend of the dollar that he finds
| 1t 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 loaner is not looked upon as Is the
doctor, who profits by our carelessness and
| imprudence of another sort, nor as the
| lawyer is, who grows fat on our unbroth-
| erly quarrels and disputes. There is
| linz bat be. Lon L
| edge or skill Is earning anything, but his
| insensate dollars. Then there is tacit
| confession of weakness in going to him at
all. His prosperity is standing proof of
our follies.
| 1t is therefore considered rather credita-
| BILE than otherwise to circumvent and
| cheat him. Sometimes this is done by in
serting ''cold dupe' in the string-that
| is to say, tho printer puts in proof of
| matter he didn't set along with proofs of
| matter which is rightfully his-but by the
time the 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 the money loaner Is not printer, but
| does business outside the office as a money
| loaner pure and simple, he Is completely
| beyond the pale, and, according to the I'M
written code, 1t Is lawful to trip up and
| discomflt him by any style of gin or pit
fall which ingenuity can devise. For ex-
| ample, printer who Is well known In all
the Chicago offices went to Shylock and
| offered to place money among the printers
| on the security of their strings and prom
| ised a 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 misadventure he would
bring the borrowers to the loan office and
| would personally vouch for their standing.
Yet the losses are 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 the men with whom he has to
| deal. One man who has been loaning
| money to his fellow printers in Chicago for
| 90 years owns several houses on the North
| Side and has other real estate He Is said
| to be worth 100000.
Whenever men come together in great
bodies, there arise among them few
shrewd individuals who profit by the
L
| 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
| rushes to fill the vacuum in the pockets Of
| the needy. The practice Is frowned down
| theoretically, but In reality tho 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-
| ployeos 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
F, ever assemble where money loaning could
| be practiced The disburser for the COR
| poraton by whom the men are 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 tho voucher will be paid. Neither
| will the railroads functionary pursue the
| subject with superfluous questions IL 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 II any class Of
young men could grasp the important idea
| of the true value of money 1t would be
the 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 tho 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 natural turn
for 1t 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