ined, security must be provided for the
existence of sufficient capital to guard against a sudden or a
fraudulent collapse. For any article not forthcoming when the owner
desires to redeem it, double the amount of the original loan is
recoverable from the pawnbroker. Should any owner of a pledge chance
to lose his ticket by theft or otherwise, he may proceed to the
pawnshop with two substantial securities, and if he can recollect the
number, date, and amount of the transaction, another ticket is issued
to him with which he may recover his property at once, or at any time
within the original sixteen months. Pawn-tickets are not unseldom
offered as pledges, and are readily received, as the loan is never
more than half the value of the deposit; and tickets thus obtained are
often sold either to a third person or perhaps to the pawnbroker who
issued them in the first instance. Formerly, when the interest payable
was four per cent. per month, it was a standing rule that during the
last three months in every year, i.e., the winter season, pledges
might be redeemed at a diminished rate, so that poor people should
have a better chance of getting back their wadded clothes to protect
them from the inclemency of frost and cold. But since the rate of
interest has been reduced to three per cent. this custom has almost
passed away; its observance is, however, sometimes called for by a
special proclamation of the local magistrate when the necessaries of
life are unusually dear, and the times generally are bad. The
following is a translation of a ticket issued by one of these shops,
which may often be recognised in a Chinese city by the character for
_pawn_ painted on an enormous scale in some conspicuous position:--"In
accordance with instructions from the authorities, interest will be
charged at the rate of three per cent. [per month] for a period of
sixteen months, at the expiration of which the pledge, if not
redeemed, will become the property of the pawnbroker, to be disposed
of as he shall think fit. All damages to the deposit arising from war,
the operations of nature, insects, rats, mildew, &c., to be accepted
by both sides as the will of Heaven. Deposits will be returned on
presentation of the proper ticket without reference to the possession
of it by the applicant." Besides this, the name and address of the
pawnshop, a number, description of the article pledged, amount lent,
and finally the date, are entered in their proper pl