The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-08-31
STRIKE FEVER GETS
HOCKSHOP CLERKS
$40 to 800 a Week Workers
Rebel at Aiding Saturday
Night Souses.
UNION SETS 6 P. NJ. LIMIT
Heightened Pawnbrokers Not
Affected, but Others Feel
Trade Loss Severely.

Pawnbrokers' clerks those coldiy criti.
cal and suspicious but Interestingly
versatile fellows who tell you the value
OF your diamond solitaires by looking at
them and appraise slide trombones by
playing on them, served notice on their
employers yesterday that they are
through answering quick touches In aid
of the families of the Saturday night
souses.
The clerks have been having Saturday
nights off during the summer. Last
night was to have been the last Of such
nights of. Early in the week. the
clerks who had hastily formed union.
served notice that the experiment OF
pawnbrokers stood out for Saturday night
must rot only be continued but that
the closing hour must be fixed at .
o'clock as on other nights of the week.
Tho clerks demands found some OF
the employers unsympathetic. These
lpawnbrokers stood out fr Saturday night
as worth as much as the rest of the
weeks business. Tho discussion cast
light on some little known phases OF
metropolitan life.
There are, 1t appears. thousands OF
persons and hundreds OF families which
deal as regularly with the pawnbroker
as they do with the grocer and butcher.
| The pawn5roker, of course, Is or thar
numerous class that will make loan
of a sort on anything that has value and
may be moved into his keeping. He is
| the hoclshop keeper as distinguished
| from the money lender on Jewels and
metals The latter groups himself apart
and does business in banking hours
His clerks are ,notsin the new movement
wtye. Get the Worst of II.
| Every Saturday night in New York
many heads of families become sepa-
rated from their weeks wages while en-
| route from the shop, store or office to
| the home. Many a weekly crap or stud
poker game is kept going by this kind
| Of sucker money. The loss creates a
domestic emergency and the RESPONSE
| bility as usual goes to the wife. She
goes to the hockshop man before she
| goes for Sundays provisions. If she
| has jewelry she uses 1t ; II not she puts
| In the most available household article.
There are families which regularly
remedy chronic lack of money by send
| ing household things to pawnbroker
who knows the members and counts on
them as his regular customers. Every
thing is accepted as security-infant S
lures. prayer books. rugs. chairs, vic
| trolas. false teeth and folding beds.
A familiar type Of regular customer is
the bachelor worker who is limited TO
display in clothes to Sunday only. Many
of these men keep their Sunday outfit
complete. from hat to socks and shoes.
| in a hockshop storeroom all week, where
they are safe from rooming house
thieves and from moths. The clothes
are taken out on Saturday night and re-
deposited on Monday morning. The
pawnbrokers say these men are among
.he .carv Who win he rut to incon-
venience and hardship II they do not
keep open on Saturday night.
| Pawnbrokers report that the high cost
OF living has caused the pawning OF
goods that had never had that expert
ence before and sent to them a class
OF people who had not hitherto had TO
resort to such relief. They declare also
that they are making appraisals for
loans on . more generous basis than
ever before.
i Clerks Number six Hundred.
Pawnbrokers' clerks are relatively few
in number. There are about 500 EN-
ployed in the 200 licensed establish.
ments of the kind in the Eve boroughs
that its membership embraces 20 per
cent. OF the total and that IL decisive
measures are found necessary every
hockshop in the city will be closed by
strike. No question of wages is in
volved. Salaries run from $50 to slOC
a week and the conditions of the bust
h ness are such that the impossibility Of
Standardization is conceded.
The competent pawnbroker's clerk l,
a product of long training based or
} natural talent. In America but two
races have adapted themselves to II
Practically all of the clerks in thi,
country are Jewish or Irish. He mus
be an expert judge Of quality in all o.
the multitudinous lines of goods tina
pass into his hands, He must know
humanity and be everlastingly watch
full that the security he accepts shall
not have been stolen.
John A. Story is president of tn,
union and Charles ]. Neia is the sec
rotary. Benjamin Fox is president o
the employers association with whicl
the union is negotiating.