The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-16
B|G RECORD OF
 DREADFUL DEBT Is Shown in Metropolis of
 United States DANGEROUS DISEASE On Manhattan Island Alone There Were 32,0OO Separate Judgments For Bad Accounts During
 the Past Year
Question: What Is a piker?,

| Question: What Is a piker?"
 Answer: Any New Yorker who lives within his income
 | That is the serious indictment made by Roy L. McCardell. author of The Jar
 sions. He makes this charge in an ar
 ticle headed "The City of Dreadful
 Debt" in the April Hampton's Maga- zine. zzssar s--s---s.s-s ---
 'The increased cost of living has been blamed on the automobile, but students of economics in New York are prone to believe it is because those who do pay | their bills have also to pay for those who don't says MT. McCardell. Com mercial agency experts estimate that in New York three million people have the getting ng-into-debt habit either chron- 1 ically acutely. And that, they say, is one big reason why it costs more to | live in New York than anywhere else | These commercial agency men assert
 that only one debt is sued for out of | fifty. They base the estimate on efforts
 10 collect accounts where their clients
 realize it is not worth the trouble or
 the expense to sue.
 ''The only reliable figures of actual ! unpaid debts are appalling enough, These
 are the records of debts sued for and
 judgments obtained. For Manhattan Is-
 land, these records are kept in room 10
 of the New York county court house;
 during the year of our Lord, 1910, 32OOo separate judgments were filed there
 This does not include any judgments
 obtained in the Brooklyn, the Bronx and | the Staten Island portions Of Greater | New York
 Tn 1908 and 1909 the figures were larg- | CT, owing to the enactment of a new
 and more definite garnishee law in 19OS l But garnshee law or no, only the same deadly average of judgments were sat | fled, settled and paid-one sixth. There
 is steady average increase every year.
 in the past ten years, of two thousand more judgments. In ten years the pop
 ulation of Manhattan Island has in- creased in no proportion to the increase | in Judgements taken against those who dwell thereon, for these evidences of the 1 debt habit have doubled In 1910, s2,000 | judgments were obtained and 550O were | paid. The other five-sizths stayed unsat- fled with all the other five-sixths of the older years.
 ''The average amount involved in these filed judgments is about hundred ool- | lars. So New Workers have become in- debted to one another, taking only the debts that are a matter of record, for s25. .O0o,o0O in the past ten years. They actually owe each other, as matter of estimate by experts, s1,250, ,oO0. If that | does not make New York City the Dread- 1 ful Debt, is is at least enough to make the metropolis distinctive.
 While Chicago, San Francisco, Phila- delphia and other large cities have their
 debt-getting citizens, New York dis tances them all, taking II even as. mere
 matter of debt to proportion of popula- ton. Small towns and country places have no monopoly of the virtues ethical or fiduciary, yet the inhabitants of the smaller places know their neighbor as themselves. While the dwellers in the City of Dreadful Debt are packed to- gether like sardlnes. they sustain about l the same social relations that one sGr- dine in the box does to another. They may be in layers, but they never mix At first glance. the ladies, God bless | them. of New York, seem charmIn3ly considerate of the feelings and finances of friends and tradesmen. There are only 373S judgments against women in | the last year of record in New York tiAS. dhhiSt it ID Niit cNtl d- 1 gance of fair feminini.y, and the minis tering unto them for their desires, that helps to make New York the City of Dreadful Debt. For husbands of spend thrift wives and fathers and wasteful daughters are irresponsible for every Dill 1 they owe. every account they open
 wives for their whole lives long, daugh- | ters until they are of age. or another man steps in to give them his name and be responsible for everything they buy and do not pay for.
 "The casual reader can scarcely believe
 that the average New York tradesElen
 will trust to appearances and extend credit without investigation for personal
 and household supplies as 1t is apparent he does. He may claim he is forced