The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-02-16
MONEY SHARKS.
They are Thick in Other Towns Than
 Spartanburg.


 Spartanburg (s. C.) Herald.
 The following letter has come to us, and 1t tells tale of things not new in these parts, to the shame of the community be 1t said:
 ''To the Editor of The Herald:
 George Dorroh, an industrious negro, who is janitor of one of the city schools. some time ago borrowed SIS from three For this loan. he Is required to pay $4 interest monthly. Four such instalments would more than pay the principal, with interest at the legal rate, yet this negro has been making these payments for about year. all the while the principal remaining the same.
 '"The pawn shop keepers know just when George gets his monthly salary of SIS, and they dog his heels till they have pocketed nearly a third of his pay. Re- gently he got behind on his rent, and his landlord sold his household goods to col- lect it. It seems these pawn shop keep have. on these same goods. Now the question is. win George have to continue making these payments?
 Frank Evans Supt. Schools.
 The question is one not hard to an- swer. No, George will not have to con tinue making the payments. What he should do is to secure an attorney and prosecute the grinding usurers who have been robbing him of his daily bread. It is very we'll to say that the negro made an agreement to pay $4 a month interest on principal of SIS, an interest of nearly 400 per cent, when the law allows a maxi mum of 10, but the man who takes this kind of an advantage of an ignorant, poverty-stricken negro is guilty of a dirty business, a business which just and honorable community should not tolerate.
 We are informed that a number of men in this city are engaged in the practice of lending small amounts to negroes on ohattei mortgages upon household furni- ture or anything else the negroes have. The plan is something like this; negro Is lent $10; he pays 8 a month until the time comes when he can pay the whole $1O in lump sum in addition to the in- terest-that Is if such time ever does come; otherwise he continues to pay 8 a month during the rest of his life. Poor George, whom Superintendent Evans tells about, would have to pay this A month during all the remaining months of his mortal existence, if the terms of his com- pact should be adhered to-. Happily for him, his landlord has levied on his house. hold goods and he is in no further fear of being "sold out"
 These pawn shop keepers" as George calls them, money sharks" as they are commonly called, sometimes operate on an extensive scale, and grind out of the ignorant and the degraded of eommuni- ty thousands of dollars. They live by 1t, this "blood money" which they filch from the purses of the poor wage-earning and helpless negroes. It is lawful? They eVaOe the law. Iney Take mortgage from a negro for one month in the amount of $5. The legal rate of interest on this loan Is less than cents. Fifty cents would not be so unreasonable. They charge the negro g, not interest but as a fee for 'drawing up the papers" At the end of the month the mortgage expires another must be drawn up: the fee again is $2. And so on for as many months as the poor negro can stand 1t. When he can pay no longer, they take his meagre but fond. effects. and put them on the block. At the auction other negroes are caught in the cruel jaws of these greedy gulping sharks; and these new victims are squeezed month after month, while the money sharks fiourishes on the fat of the land and 'goes out into society"
 The civil law declares that when usury Is proved, the usurer shall pay back twice the amount he has taken in usury. This is not sufficient; the criminal law should reach them. Such sharks as we have described above should be proceeded against criminally, put into the peniten- tiary. The moral law does reach them: "verily they have their reward;" their consciences doth prick them. The social law should be no less relentless; a man who is guilty of such practices Is not worthy to associate with respectable people.