protect those who know enough to apply it,
but the poor man remains unprovided with any satisfactory means of
negotiating a loan. The legal rate of interest is too low to make
loans on chattels profitable. The organization, by public-spirited
business men, of companies that will be careful in taking risks, and
will secure special legislation enabling them to charge not more than a
reasonable rate of interest, is the only remedy. Companies like these
have been organized successfully in Boston and Buffalo by
philanthropists who were also business men and wise enough to realize
the importance of placing such loan agencies on an equitable business
basis. Several advantages are apparent from the working of these
equitable loan companies. Those who cannot {118} properly negotiate a
loan are discouraged from applying, because the loans are made with
great care. Those who get the loans are fairly dealt with, and are
helped at the right time in a way that saves them from becoming
applicants for charity. Best of all, the other loan companies are
forced to reduce their rate of interest, and offer fairer terms.

The habit of pawning goods has never become general among our native
population, but among the foreign poor of our large cities it is the
common practice; and here, too, the philanthropic pawnshop, started at
the instance of the New York Charity Organization Society, has reduced
the percentage charged by other pawnshops in New York.

This new interest taken by philanthropy in the poor man as borrower is
still in the tentative and experimental stage, but there is an
encouraging analogy between its beginnings and the early history of the
savings banks. "It is seldom remembered," says Mrs. Lowell, "that the
great scheme of savings banks was originally conceived and put into
operation as a means of helping the poor. The two first {119} savings
banks were started in Hamburg in 1778, and in Berne in 1787, and both
were more or less closely restricted to the use of domestic servants,
handicraftsmen and the like. The Hamburg bank was part of the general
administration of the poor funds." [4]

When the poor man attempts to save, what inducements have greatest
weight with him? First of all, he is likely to save for some definite
and immediate object, because he cannot spend in any effective way
until he has saved. In teaching shiftless families to put by small
sums, therefore, it is well to keep some definite object in