Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1912 — Former Rensselaer Man Mentioned In Loan Shark Case. [ARTICLE]

Former Rensselaer Man Mentioned In Loan Shark Case.

The Chicago Tribune, which is conducting a war against the city loan sharks because of the usurous rate of interest charged by th pm, last Sunday gave an account of the doings of the Alfred W. Hopkins agency in Englewood. By the Tribune’s account it is alleged that a mortgage given by a man and his wife on bheir 1 household goods to this agenoy ten years ago for the loan of $l5O, a rate of 5 per cent interest a month was charged. When threatened with foreclosure proceedings, because up the interest for some time the couple were unable to pay the principal or part of it, the couple consented to the transfer of the loan to (he South Side Savings Bank, which was shifted back and forth 'several times in years following. The hirsband and wife Anally separating and she being unable to keep up she interest, in some manner the dfeal reached the attorneys who have volunteered their assistance in the Tribune’s war against the loan sharks, although, at the time of the filing of a bill of equity by the Tribune’s attorney for the woman, the loan was in the South Side Savings Bank and not in the name of the Hopkins company. Legislation should be enacted to make impossible the present methods of the city loan sharks, the Tribune thinks.