Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1913-03-06
.SHYLOCk IN. SLUMs
How Poor Of British Cities Are
Continually Made Poorer.
Most Of the Money Lenders Are
Women Who often Exact Nine
Hundred Per cent.--Blg Fees
for Small Loans.


iblel Yet that is about the rate Of
interest which was paid by a poor
woman in Bermondsey, who lately
poisoned herself by drinking oxalic
acid, a writer in London Tit-Bits
states. She had borrowed the sum Of
14s and had contracted TO pay interest
at the rate of one penny in the shill-
ing per week. That is to say, she
had undertaken to pay is I'd for the
loan of 14s for one week. AS the
coroner said that rate Of interest
Seems excessive"
Going to Bermondsey recently, the
writer called on the Rev. II. Williams
of ST. Johns Horsleydown, who has
studied the problem of money lending
closely and then discovered that the
shylocks of the slums do not confine
their operations to Bermondsey; they
exist all over the country and are as
troublesome in Liverpool and Green
ock as they are in London. They are
not money lenders in the sense In
which the late Isaac Gordon was a
money lender; they do not rent Of
fees, nor do they advertise them
selves as financiers willing to accom-
modate necessitous persons con note
of hand only" with loans ranging from
95 to $4,000, nor do they circularize
schoolboys, undergraduates and cler-
gymen, as is the habit of the shylocks
of the middle classes. Most of them,
In fact, are unregistered, and there
| fore, If detected In money lending
transactions, are liable to heavy fines.
The license costs e10, and the shy
lock of the slum Is not sufficiently sup
| piled with capital to be able to waste
money on licenses when It can be
more profitably employed.
The bulk of these slum money lend
ers are women. AS rule, they are OF
the class to which their clients be-
was a woman so poor that in order to
| obtain capital she pawned her
clothes. There was a streak of finan-
cial genius In this woman, for she
was able to obtain money from a
pawnbroker at the rate of farthing
in the shilling; she lent 1t to her
| clients at the rate of twopence in the
shilling. In Bermondsey the rate Of
interest charged by these money lend
ers is generally a penny In the shill-
ing; In Liverpool It is frequently two
/ pence. But in practice the rate in
Bermondsey is often twopence. This
is due to the fact that Saturday, the
day on which repayment is generally
made, is always treated as the begin
ming of another wek. For example,
| II a client borrows shillings on
| Thursday afternoon and repays that
sum on the following Saturday she
is said to have had the loan for two
weeks. The amount of interest due
from her, therefore, is tenpence! AS
we are usually paid on Saturday, 1t is
clearly impossible for a women in
urgent need Of money on Thursday to
repay the borrowed sum on Friday,
when fivepence interest is due.
If the borrower wishes to retain the
principal for an additional week. she
is allowed to do so at double rates Of
interest. Thus a woman borrowing 5s
on the Thursday of one week and re-
paying 1T on the Saturday of the next
week owes interest for three weeks,
although she has only had the money,
in fact, for nine days. and the amount
of interest due from her is 2s Id.
In some places, notably in Liver
pool, the money lender expects the
borrower, even II the amount of the
loan is only shilling, to spend por-
tion Of it in buying fish. steak and
other edibles or beer. The charges
made for these goods are heavy,
usually two or three times their
value. One money lender used to sell
bedding and furniture to her clients.
lending the money to them to pay for
1t. She and other money lenders
have carried the work of the tally
man" beyond the usual practice, and
appear. in consequence to have made
It more profitable.
1t may be asked: How can these
unregistered, and therefore illegal,
money lenders make their business
pay, in view Of the high rate of inter
est charged. and also Of the fact that
they do not obtain security for their
loans?" Strange as 1t may seem,
their losses through defaulting clients
are very few. The sums lent are gen
orally small. seldom more than Ell
and usually under los. The loan is, in
most cases. contracted by a woman
without the knowledge Of her hus-
band. This fact gives the money lend
er hold over the borrower. and the
supposititious question stated above
may be answered thus: by methods
OF blum and terrorism"
The borrowers do not know that an
unregistered money lender is subject
to heavy fine but even II they were
aware of this fact they would prob
ably hesitate long while before re-
pudiating loans or defaulting IN pay
| -