A Hongkong paper has been exposing the methods of that Shylock of the East, the Sikh moneylender, and Shanghai shares the trouble with Hongkong. Beaver Singh _arrives very often with no. more: than his cooking pots and perhaps jo spare dress shirt, gets a watchman's job at about $20 per month and soons saves $50 to lend out at anything from 100 per cent.: upwards. The game is easier here than at Home, because of the ever present fear of court proceedings and publicity. Such cases can be hidden in London, but not in Shanghai. Our southern contemporary, however, declares that the Sikhs are wasting their time: they should go to London. This on the basis of a coroner's discovery that in poor districts a penny in the shilling interest on a loan for a week is the general practice. It works out at well over 400 percent. per annum, or not far short of 1,000 per cent. when borrowed for part of a week. One woman, fully licensed and carrying on business in a small room in Westminster, four years ago was herself borrowing money. Now sha is lending £200 every week, and this summer laid out over £100 on loans to hoppers making for Kent. One recalls the late Judge Willis, stern in appearance and somewhat cranky, but essentially kind of heart and ever just. Whilst the usure? smiled satisfiedly, Judge Willis in -his rasping voice would address a poor wretched woman thus: "You borrowed
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