The times., 1899-02-05
SMILES and TEARS
OF THE PAWNSHOP
Pistols Enough in the Window
to Supply an Army.
Sentiment Has No Place in the Pro-
prie,or's Bosom.
The Widows Sewing Machine. Scar
let Womnn's Diamond and the
Gamblers Cards NeiEhbors.
From the Atlanta oonstitution.)

sea- While the wheel of fortune on which
all mankind is apt to takei a revolution
or two is making its ceaseless turns, it Is
a strange thing that those who are at the
top little know how those who are strug-
Cling at the bottom are faring. Ambition,
desire strengthen the vision of those at
the bottom and necessity gives them the
strength to swing to a spoke that has
started upwards. When the rim of the
wheel of fortune strikes the mire of pow
erty with its ciinging load struggling TO
avoid the rock of starvation, then it is
that the pawnshop catches many of them
in its usurious meshes. Behind the gaudy
windows of the pawnshop, with their con-
glomerate mass of everything, from the
drunlIards flask TO the family Bible. there
is a world of pathos, sorrow wasted for
tune, a COED dael cf misfortune and enough
humor to make the average up-to-date
typical hockshop full of mysterious inter-
est to those who, free from necessity, may
go into one.
If you have never been in the position
where you lacked the price of drink or
felt the need of crust of bread, you can
scarce imagine the thousands OF articles
that find their way into your uncle
glanced into the window OF some soft
hearted Hebrew and smiled you caught
sight of the old fiddles, the battered ban
JOS the gutless guitars, the keyless horns,
the handless clocks, the thumbworn books
in fact, everything, from the gaudy
jewels of the gambler and the outcast to
the sewing machine of the starving work
woman. In clothes you may find the
silk-lined full dress suit of the ten-do,lar-
oil nrI- -kfN h1- naf iG
holiday raiment TO pay his carriage bill.
You may find the overalls or the seedy
oyercoat of the honest working man,
who has pawned them for the price OF a
drink
There are enough pistols in the pawn
shops on Decatur Street to arm ha of
the standing army of the country. There
are enough playing cards to supply Monte
Carlo. Every crap shooter that called
for 4 seven or pleaded for point Gould
find a pair of bones" Speaking of
bones, there are any number of from
bones. The trombone seems to be the ia
vorite instrument with the pawners.
There seems TO be no particular reason
for ths-in fact there are thousands of
things in the hockshops that there seems
to be no reason for. but they are there
just the same in all their deserted glory.
l. seems unreasonable to suppose that
Z trombone players DIS Il CLASS nave any NOist
luck than other musicians, or that they
are any more a profigate set. 1t may be
that fate is kind TO the rest of humanity
and is making an effort to palm OF ali the
trombones on the uncles of the country.
May fate succeed and ali the trombone
players be saved before it is too late.
The pawnshop has its literature. There
are three writers who could find any num-
ber of their works in any of the many
bard of Avon would doubtless feel cha
grined If he could see the various edi-
tions OF his humble efforts that fill the
shelves Of the pawnshops. How justly
! mortified he would feel il he should happen
on Decatur Street and see The immortal
efforts of his lifetime advertised in the
following manner: ''Bill Shakespeare's
| latest poems dirt cheap" Wilkie Collins
and Alexandra Dumas are the two authors
who keep bill" company on the shelves
of the .pawnshops. Just why these three
authors should deserve the fate of having
their books selected from all literature as
the most hooked of all other works is
mystery.
Can it be that the man who would get
low enough and mean enough TO pawn a
book, dead mans thoughts. is not cap
able of appreclating anything that these
three brain toilers would put on paper. Or
appreciated in all of the walks OF life and
that their books are in the pawnshops be-
cause the country is so well supplied with
| them, and the generous uncle who loans a
| few dollars on them can always find a sale
| for them? Or ii may be there is no reason
for it, after all, and that it simply exists
as one of those uneXplainable acts. But
| among the books in the pawnshops one
| is surprised to the stoly Bible. Even
I lt.s...
| a sickenng shudder creep over him as
he glances at family Bible and the
memories of one at home comes back to
| him, and he thinks OF that page between
| the two Testaments where loving hands
! have recorded the death of the old mother
| or the old father, where evidence of his
own existence is written by loving par
| ents. Could human heart be so devoid
| of sentiment?
| Just imagine the word of God taken as
swindling device. and you find one of
the reasons why there are so many fam
| lily Bibles in the pawnshops. In all their
/ glaring gold lettering and their morocco
bound glory they never saw the inside of
/ a family circle. These Bibles, while they
! may redeem the world, will never be re-
deemed themselves from the pawnshop.
| They are sold on what the negroes call
the "extortion'' plan, the correct name of
which is the installmeut plan. The uur-
| chaser pays the first installment OF a
/ dollar for book that is valued at ff-
| teen or twenty dollars. OF course he
does not want the fifteen dollar Bible,
but he does want the tifteen-cent drink.
and there is not a pawnbrOker in town who
! will not lend at least three or four dol
lars on one of these Bibles. Just why
they should lend anything on them is
| another one of those mysteries, because
It is doubtful If they ever resell one.
| 1t is not spiritual relief that the fire.
quenters of the pawnshops are seeking.
There are two classes of articles that are
pawned. One class is pawned from neces-
sity and the other from sheer extrava-
gance. Drummers and actors are among
the classes of people who pawn from ne
cessity. A drummer gets into strange
town the deniZens of the town get into
his roll, he has been drawing on his house
| heavily and he does not wan. them TO
know that he is strapped. He has his
samples. they probably worth $l00 II
! matters not to the "uncles'' whether he
is the legal owner of the samples or not.
They are easily pawnabe for onefourth
their value, and he goes and hangs them
up. That night telegram goes back to
the house: Samples lost by carelessness
of the railroad. Ship others. Big sale in
sight" And the house foots the bill.
Your uncle is far sighted person. He
can forget the cold weather with the ther-
mometer al zero, and cheerfully accommO-
date with a couple of dollars the man who
wants 10 hook an electric fan. What a vast
amount of necessity it must take to make
a man think of pawning an electric fan,
as some fellow has done in local shop.
| Illustrative of the versatile mind of the
| broker and his keen far -sightedness there