famous life; and often times it came into his mind to tell them so, but shame and sorrow held him dumb. Meantime the maidens wept continually, not knowing what to do, and not having bread to eat, and their father became more and more desperate. When Nicholas heard of this, he thought it a shame that such a thing should happen in a Christian land; therefore one night, when the maidens were asleep, and their father alone sat watching and weeping, he took a handful of gold, and tying it up in a handkerchief, he repaired to the dwelling of the poor man. He considered how he might bestow it without making himself known, and while he stood irresolute, the moon coming from behind a cloud, showed him a window. open; so he threw it in, and it fell at the feet of the father, who, when he found it, returned thanks, and with it portioned his eldest daughter. The second time Nicholas provided a similar sum, and again he threw it in by night, and with it the nobleman married his second daughter. But he greatly desired to know who it was that came to his aid, therefore he determined to watch, and when the good saint came for the third time, and prepared to throw in the third purse, he was discovered, for the nobleman seized him by the skirt of his robe, and flung himself at his feet, saying, 'Oh, Nicholas ! servant of God, why seek to hide thyself?' and he kissed his feet and his hands. But Nicholas made him promise that he would tell no man."

In the engraving which accompanies the story, the saint is represented standing on tip toe, and about to throw a ball-shaped purse into the window of the house. The nobleman is seen through an open doorway, sitting sorrowfully in the nearest room, while his three daughters are sleeping in a chamber beyond. The three purses of gold, or as they are more commonly figured, the three golden balls, disposed in exact Pawnbroker fashion, are to this

day the recognized and special emblem of the charitable Nicholas.

It is probable that a much more common-place explanation of this sign may be given by supposing that the three balls are the representatives of the article in which the Pawnbroker deals-Money. In the case of most of the London Trading Companies, it will be found that their Armorial bearings are charged with three of those objects which are the staple of that Company's manufacture. Thus the Goldsmiths, in addition to the Leopard's heads, have three cups or chalices; the Saddlers three saddletrees; the Stationers three books; the Needle-makers three needles, &c. In all probability the Lombards merely adopted the emblems of their traffic, and selected three Byzants," a gold coin of great purity, current during the middle ages. "Byzant " also is the herald's term for a circle of gold; and thus the device would really be three golden coins on a field azure; a form in which they are commonly presented to the eye even now, whenever the Pawnbroker has to depict his signs upon a flat surface, such as a window blind. As the use of flat sign boards passed out of fashion, the original idea was preserved by the use of golden spheres, which had the advantage of being equally visible from whatever point of view the customer's eye might light upon them. Every reader may make his own election between these conflicting theories: -between piety and pelf; between alms-giving by a medieval Bishop and money-lending by a modern broker. With the liveliest appreciation of the excellence of the good saint's motives, it may be doubted whether public interest or private morality would be served by a general imitation of his example. Mrs. Jameson says of him :-" While knighthood had its St. George, serfhood had its St. Nicholas. He was emphatically the saint of the people; the bourgeois saint, invoked by the peaceful citizen, by

the labourer who toiled for his daily bread, by the merchant who traded from shore to shore, by the mariner, struggling with the stormy ocean. He was the protector of the weak against the strong, of the poor against the rich, of the captive, the prisoner, the slave. No saint in the calendar has so many churches, chapels, and altars dedicated to him. In England, I suppose, there is hardly a town without one church at least bearing his name."

Besides the church bearing his name, most towns in England contain at least one establishment bearing his arms. Nor need the holy man be ashamed of his successors. Pawnbroking in our day is not open to nearly such serious objection as the indiscriminate almsgiving which has made St. Nicholas immortal. The Pawnbroker lives to supply an every day want, and his calling will always exist, if not under legal recognition, then in spite of legal prohibition. If it sometimes encourages improvidence, it continually relieves distress. It enables a poor man to meet a temporary pressure, just as the help of the bill discounter, banker, or mortgagee does similar service for his wealthier neighbour. In France and elsewhere, the State has taken upon itself the duty of providing this kind of assistance to the borrower. In England, this branch of commerce has, like most others, been left to individual enterprise, controlled and regulated in certain particulars, by special legislation.

CHAPTER I.

THE CONTRACT OF PAWN DEFINED.

The Contract of Pawn is described in the Digest as "Pignus, appellatum a pugno, quia pignori quæ res dantur, manu traduntur, unde etiam videri potest, verum esse quod quidam putant, Pignus proprie re mobilis constitui” (a). And again," Conventis generalis in pignore dando bonorum, vel postea quæsitorum recepta est" (b). Delivery of the chattel is here treated as an incident of the contract, though it is elsewhere said that " Pignus contrahitur non sola traditione, sed etiam nuda conventione, etsi non traditum est (c). This latter passage, however, is regarded by Pothier (d) as an instance of the use of the term in a broad, rather than a strictly legal sense, by which it is made to include such a valid agreement of pledge, as would give the intending pawnee a right to the possession of the chattel, and would therefore be enforced by the Prætor, jure prætorio. Such a contract is more properly described by the term hypotheca, for while it is said that in " Pignus, ... res quæ pignori dantur, manu traduntur," it is added that "contrahitur hypotheca per pactum conventum, cum quis paciscatur, ut res ejus propter aliquam obligationem sint hypothecæ nomine obligatæ ; nec ad rem pertinet quibus sit verbis sicuti est et in his obligationibus quæ consensu contrahuntur Inter pignus autem et hypothecam, tantum nominis sonus differt" (e). The Roman jurists, when noticing the contract, often assume that the debtor has deposited the

(a) Dig. Lib. 50, tit. 16, 1. 238, sec. 2. (b) Dig. Lib. 20, tit. 1, 1. 1. (c) Dig. Lib. 13, tit. 7. (d) De Nantissement, n. b. n. 1. (e) Dig. Lib. 20, tit. 1, 1. 4, 1. 5, sec. 1.

66

دو

thing pawned with his creditor. Gaius thus illustrates the proposition that a man may steal his own property (a): "Veluti si debitor rem quam creditori pignori dedit substraxerit." And again;-"Unde constat creditorem de pignore subrepto furti agere posse; adco quidem ut quamviipse dominus, id est debitor, eam rem subripuerit › (V). Justinian (c) says, Pignoris appellatione eam proprie rem contineri dicimus, quæ simul etiam traditur creditori, maxime si mobilis sit; at eam quæ sine traditione nuda conventione tenetur, proprie hypothecæ appellatione contineri dicimus." Mr. Sanders, in his well known edition of the Institutes, describes the jus pignoris as "the right given to a creditor over a thing belonging to another, in order to secure the payment of a debt. When the thing over which the right was given, passed into the possession of the creditor, the right was expressed by the word pignus; when the thing remained in the hands of the debtor, the right of the creditor was expressed by hypotheca" (d). Ortolan (e) more loosely says, "le droit de gage ou hypothéque, considéré comme droit réel, est un droit par lequel une chose se trouve affectée, pour sureté au paiement d'une dette." It is, however, clear that delivery is of the essence of an English pawn (ƒ).

The following are selected from among the many definitions of this contract.

"Pawn is a bailment of goods by a debtor to his creditor to be kept till the debt is discharged” (g).

"The fourth class of bailments is when goods or chattels

(c) Just. Lib. 4, tit. 6, sec. 7.

(d) Sanders's Justinian, Lib. 5, tit. 2, in notis.

(e) Explication Historique des Instituts, Liv. 2, sec. 513.

(f) Ryall v. Rolle, 1 Atk. 165, 170.

(g) Sir Wm. Jones On Bailments, 118, adopted by Kent, 2 Com. Wharton's Law Lexicon, 6th edit., by Shiress Will, edit. p. 703.