Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1897 — Austria's Imperial Pawnshop. [ARTICLE]

Austria's Imperial Pawnshop.

Austria has an Imperial pawnshop. It was established in Vienna in 1707, whep there was great distress among the poor in the southern part of the empire. It was designed as a way to secure to the starving some means of immediate relief, and by putting the rate of interest as low as possible and the valuations as high as possible, and embodying in the system every advantage that could be given to those who sought to make loans, It was found to be so effective that it soon gained the Imperial sanction, and it was not long until its managers were made public officials under the direction of »he Minister of the Interior. This is substantially the status of the institution at thia tjiue. The rates are so low that the business done on the cheap goods and chattels of the ;>oor eoukl not possibly make tlie establishment Bolf-austaknlng; but people who have been suddenly reduced in circumstances or who are temporarily embarrassed keep the margins on tlie right side and enable th? Institution to keep open,without tlie aid of a subsidy. In the year 1893 a total of 8(16,015 articles were pledged, and of tliese 848,5(12 were redeemed, a remarkable redemption as compared with the proportions of five average pawnshop. The unredeemed pledges were sold at public auction, nnd wltenever they brought more than the face of the pledge Hie balance was set to the account of the pietiger, to be refunded any time with in three years.—London Standard.