Edinburgh, Aug. 4.
Thad a rather curious experience the other evening which is worth the telling. At a public dinner I found myself seated next a wealthy financier highly respected by the poor. Not to put too fine @ point on it, he is a flourishing pawnbroker. We had an interesting talk and he confirmed the general opinion that, despite appearances, money is not so plentiful as in recent years. He based his opinion on the fact that business in his line was bris! than it had been for some time. "We are getting a different class of customer now from what we used to get, one that has not yet got over its shyness in approach," he said. "They hesitate before coming to interview me, but they come in the end, and I am not unsympathetic. They are the New Poor!"
I gathered from him that certain established customs in the pa broking way are no longer in evidence. "The families who made a practice of _pawning their pianos in spring and redeeming them the winter are no longer in evidence." The financier assured me that he had seen the day when his_place was packed with pianos in July.
I asked him what was the most unexpected pledge he had been offered in the course of his Business career. He was inclined to think that a minister's gown was the greatest novelty. He had not seen the ex-munition workers who are supposed in great numbers to have pawned their fur coats. "They are not coming to me with them," he said. "Tf they've got them, they must be sleeping in them."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.