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The lady nodded, and when at last they were alone, told all she knew of the affair. Maude Glendower had persisted in her folly until her husband's property was reduced to a mere pittance. There was a heavy mortgage upon the farm, and even a chattel-mortgage upon the furniture, and as the man who held them was stern and unrelenting, he had foreclosed, and the house was to be sold at auction.
Ephraim Foulsham had partially agreed to advance the sum if he could be secured by a chattel-mortgage, and when Neal overtook those in advance he was speculating upon the possibility of getting the amount that day, lest execution should be issued against him. That which he heard, however, speedily drove all thoughts of a personal nature from his mind.
Bled dry at last, and unable to pay such extortionate interest and the principal too, their goods are seized, and the members of the household become objects of charity. Whereever these chattel-mortgage companies gain any foothold, many of their victims are applicants for relief. The law usually furnishes ample protection, but the companies flourish through the poor man's ignorance of the law.
If there be anything in Boston that can rival the cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop, you will find it in the dens of some chattel-mortgage sharks, whose business methods I have investigated. Here is a woman who made her living by making overalls at five cents a pair. Times, of course, were always hard with her. Her husband was out of work a good part of the time.
The chattel-mortgage shark, who watches all the necessities of the poor as anxiously as ever a hawk watched over a helpless or crippled bird, and the liquor-seller, who fills his coffers by a traffic which injures and destroys the health, the intelligence, and the morality of all the people whom he can draw into his net, investing all his cunning in methods to entrap the unwary, and gloating over the increasing appetite and the devilish passion for strong drink in his victims, are only brothers to the others who gather to pay their devotions to the god of gold.
A family in pecuniary straits for the first time is naturally attracted by the specious advertisements of the chattel-mortgage companies, which offer to lend money on goods that the borrower keeps in his possession, and promise that all negotiations shall be strictly confidential. This seems an easy way out of present difficulties without loss of self-respect or any painful publicity.
Nothing is more foolish than for us to keep still, hoping that in some way these wrongs will remedy themselves. Shall we look to the sweater, the chattel-mortgage shark, the lecherous merchant, to reform themselves? They do not care how long, nor at what a pittance, men and women work, or to what fearful extremities they are driven. Reforms will never come from the gold-box of Mammon.
If he would save, there are agents of unsound financial schemes ready to take advantage of his ignorance. If he would borrow, there are chattel-mortgage sharks ready to burden him with a debt at ruinous interest. If he would buy, there are instalment dealers ready to tempt him into buying more than he can afford, and ready to charge two prices for their wares.
I should have stated that this money was secured by a chattel-mortgage upon every article of household furniture they possessed. These mortgages are ironclad, and put the people at the mercy of the man who holds them.
"I'm figuring on their generators," he went on in explanation. "Big contract?" asked Walter. "Two thousand kilowatt turbo generator," answered Paul. The other whistled. "Whew! I didn't know they had the cash!" "They haven't," said Paul briefly. "Oh, chattel-mortgage?" surmised the other. "Lease-contract," Paul corrected. "That doesn't have to be recorded." "What's the matter with recording it?"
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