FROM THE ARCHIVES:Pawnshops were still regular fixtures in most towns in the mid-20th century, at their busiest on Monday mornings when items recovered for the weekend with the previous week's pay were once again pawned. – JOE JOYCE
THE VICARIOUS experience of ill-luck, poverty, tragedy and humour that are the daily experiences of the pawnshop clerk were vividly demonstrated to an Irish Timesreporter recently in Dublin.
On a Monday morning, shortly before 8 o’clock, he writes, I passed through a quiet street in which the lamps were still burning, illuminating three brass balls that hung high above the heads of a queue of people outside a shuttered shop. A mixed gathering of well-dressed and poorly-dressed people, young and old, male and female, they carried bundles under their arms and huddled in their clothes against the sharp morning breeze. There was an air of suspense about them which quickened into a kind of agitation as the lights went on in the shop and the rattle of withdrawing bolts came through the doors. All semblance of a queue disappeared when the doors opened and the crowd jostled through.
I followed and saw that the agitation which shattered the queue had gained the upper hand inside, and the crowd was pushing, calling and knocking on the counter to attract the attention of the clerks. The carefully held parcels were opened and their contents spread out on the counter. The clerks made a hasty examination of them and roughly assessed the value of each, haggled a little with the customers, took their names and addresses, issued the familiar ticket and paid the agreed amount. Half an hour’s work killed the first rush, and I delayed to talk with the clerks, who were taking a breather. The story they told me is unusual. It really is only half a story for they only know their customers in a cursory way and must guess at the backgrounds and at the events which send them to the pawnshop on Monday, and other, mornings.
Twenty years ago, I was informed, pawnbrokers were as common as publicans in Dublin; but the number has dwindled to 26, approximately. The number was too large before, and only those with big capital survived. Pawnbroking, they said, was by no means a dying business. The existing shops are doing far more business than the larger number did years ago. Monday morning is the pawnbroking assistant’s nightmare, a time of concentrated rush, when the doors must open sharp at 8 o’clock, and the assistants must be in beforehand to prepare for the drive of the first half-hour. Most of the articles that are pawned have spent the previous week on the shop’s shelves, and have been redeemed on Friday or Saturday [. . .]
One morning a man with a wooden leg and a crutch hobbled into this shop, unscrewed the leg, pushed it across the counter and got a few shillings in return. The pawnbroker never got another sight of him after he had limped out on the crutch, and the leg was auctioned off after the statutory time had elapsed.
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