220
NOTES AND QUERIES
The borrower then pays that amount weekly until his loan is paid off, while the other depositors reduce their weekly payments by the amount of interest. However, their share value remains.
The bidding occurs at a meeting to which all depositors are invited. If no one bids, the banker finds a single borrower from the list of depositors and the funds are thus dispersed. Borrowers must have another person vouch for their integrity and be considered solvent themselves, but no loans are secured by property or recorded in courthouse files as liens.
After the loan is made, regular deposits resume until a new round of bidding occurs. After a period of time agreed to by the group, the "bank" stops making loans. After all loans are paid back, the depositors receive their money, and the bank is closed. Then a new one is formed and the process begins again.
In this system there is no policing as such. The operation is run by a "banker" chosen by the organizers. The banker accepts deposits, keeps the books (usually handwritten in Chinese characters), keeps the money in a safe place (invariably cash, never in a regular bank account), dispenses the loans and ultimately pays the depositors.
When it came time to close the four banks in late 1976, the money was not there to pay the depositors. The lack of that money, according to those involved, is related to the financial difficulties of [name] one of the bankers and head of the local Chinese Free Masons.....
This interesting piece was supplied by one of our Members, Captain Charles S. Mill, United States Marine Corps. The account by Eugene Meyer, Washington Post Staff Writer, clearly relates to the traditional Chinese money loan association, not something "created long ago in this country by enterprising Chinese immigrants" as Mr. Meyer supposed. Accounts of it as practised in China may be found in J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese, 4th edition, Kelly and Walsh, Hong Kong 1903: 632-645 and as Appendix E to G. N. Orme's Report on the New Territories [of Hong Kong] for the years 1899 to 1912 in Hong Kong Government's Sessional Papers, 1912.
TWO LETTERS FROM WARTIME CHINA
The two letters which follow were passed to me by the late Walter Schofield (Hong Kong Civil Service 1911-1938) They are from the
220
NOTES AND QUERIES
The borrower then pays that amount weekly until his loan is paid off, while the other depositors reduce their weekly payments by the amount of interest. However, their share value remains.
The bidding occurs at a meeting to which all depositors are invited. If no one bids, the banker finds a single borrower from the list of depositors and the funds are thus dispersed. Borrowers must have another person vouch for their integrity and be consider- ed solvent themselves, but no loans are secured by property or recorded in courthouse files as liens.
After the loan is made, regular deposits resume until a new round of bidding occurs. After a period of time agreed to by the group, the "bank" stops making loans. After all loans are paid back, the depositors receive their money, and the bank is closed. Then a new one is formed and the process begins again.
In this system there is no policing as such. The operation is run by a "banker" chosen by the organizers. The banker accepts de- posits, keeps the books (usually handwritten in Chinese characters), keeps the money in a safe place (invariably cash, never in a regular bank account), dispenses the loans and ultimately pays the depositors.
When it came time to close the four banks in late 1976, the money was not there to pay the depositors. The lack of that money, according to those involved, is related to the financial difficulties of [name] one of the bankers and head of the local Chinese Free Masons.....
This interesting piece was supplied by one of our Members, Captain Charles S. Mill, United States Marine Corps. The account by Eugene Meyer, Washington Post Staff Writer, clearly relates to the traditional Chinese money loan association, not something "created long ago in this country by enterprising Chinese immigrants" as Mr. Meyer supposed. Accounts of it as practised in China may be found in J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese, 4th edition, Kelly and Walsh, Hong Kong 1903: 632-645 and as Appendix E to G. N. Orme's Report on the New Territories [of Hong Kong] for the years 1899 to 1912 in Hong Kong Government's Sessional Papers, 1912.
TWO LETTERS FROM WARTIME CHINA
The two letters which follow were passed to me by the late Walter Schofield (Hong Kong Civil Service 1911-1938) They are from the
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