United States
The pawnbroker in the United States is, generally speaking, subject to considerable legal restriction, but violations of the laws and ordinances are frequent. Each state has its own regulations, but those of New York and Massachusetts may be taken as fairly representative.
Brokers of pawn are usually licensed by the mayors, or by the mayors and aldermen, but in Boston the police commissioners are the licensing authority. In the state of New York permits are renewable annually on payment of $500, and the pawnbroker must file a surety bond with the Department of Consumer Affairs, in the sum of $10,000. The business is conducted on much the same lines as in England. The rate of interest is 4% per month and the loan is written for a period of 4 months, with an additional 30 day grace period. To enact higher rates is a misdemeanor. Unredeemed pledges may be sold at anytime after the legal time for the loan. New York contains one pawnshop to every 12,000 inhabitants. In the state of Massachusetts unredeemed pledges may be sold four months after the date of deposit. The licensing authority may fix the rate of interest, which may vary for different amounts, and in Boston every pawnbroker is bound to furnish to the police daily a list of the pledges taken in during the preceding twenty-four hours, specifying the hour of each transaction and the amount lent.
Read more about this topic: History Of Pawnbroking
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
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—R.W. ‘Tiny’ Rowland (b. 1917)
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—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)