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Show ITALY HAD FIRST PAWNSHOP From That Country the System Gradually Gradu-ally Spread Over the Rest of th Civilized World. The French call them monts-de-pleteV but no satisfactory explanation for thl nomenclature is forthcoming. The establishment es-tablishment of municipal pawnshops In France was attended with more difficulty diffi-culty than was the case in other countries. coun-tries. ' It is from Italy that the idea of municipal mu-nicipal pawnshops spread over the rest of Europe. A municipal pawnshop was-set. was-set. up in Madrid in the year 1703, when a priest with very little capital opened up as an "uncle." The system was tried at Avignon in 1577, but it was not until the year 1777 that Paris itself was provided with a mont-de-plete. The national assembly upset the monopoly and the business passed into private hands. The extortions of the pawnbrokers in time led, however, to a demand for the re-establishment of the governmental institutions. In 1S08 Napoleon re-established the monopoly, regulating it by laws that are still in force. The interest charged amounts to about 7 per cent. In Paris the mont-de-piete is in effect n department of the administration, but in the provinces it Is a municipal monopoly. |