# What Kind of Business Did Scrooge&Marley Indulge In? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735 "2011-12-10T14:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/21 "2011-12-12T11:17:22Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > We definitely say “maize” but I’ve never even heard the term “Indian corn”. Sometimes you see this in older novels (pre 1900). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/22 "2011-12-12T12:09:44Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Sometimes you see this in older novels (pre 1900). OK. In any case strike the word “currently” from **rowrrbazzle** ’s post. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/23 "2011-12-12T14:07:19Z")
I always pictured him as an accountant but I guess moneylender makes more sense. ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/24 "2011-12-12T14:16:02Z")
In the Albert Finney version, he’s definitely a moneylender (or loanshark, even). On his way home from on Christmas Eve, he stops by several stands (including Tom Jenkins’, the hot soup man, who later sings, “Thank you very much…”) and demands payment. Jenkins offers hot soup for every day of the next year in exchange for being given another two weeks to pay what’s due. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/25 "2011-12-12T16:08:20Z")
I take issue with the money-lending consensus. There is little suggestion in the original story that Scrooge deals with the general public as would a pawn-broker or loan shark. His “trade” probably invovles granting credit to other businesses, but this doesn’t make him a “money lender” any more than we would describe a wholesale business today, with a credit manager, as a “money lender”. No doubt the money lender theme has crept into many adaptations, but that’s because it’s an easy stereotype for a greedy grasping business person. It is not present in the original. Scrooge is simply “in trade”; in modern terms, he is a humorless workaholic. The nature of the trade isn’t important. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/26 "2011-12-12T16:30:37Z")
I agree-Scrooge & Marley was probably a credit/short-term financing operation. There was no warehouse, so Scrooge didn’t deal in goods-plus he had only a single clerk. I forget the source (either the book ofr the GCS movie version), but Scrooge did deal with merchants (either financing their debt or bying their receivables). So, in his business , he wold have known a lot of people-which is why Dickens emphasiszed his social isolation (nobdy wanted to attend the funeral, unless lunch was included). ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/27 "2011-12-12T16:42:31Z")
> [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](#): > > Wasn’t it a counting house? So I assumed some sort of accounting firm. He has a counting house, where his money is counted. He has his own accountant(Bob) that makes sure very penny is accounted for. We even see a happy couple who learn Scrooge is dead…knowing that they won’t have to pay him back now. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/28 "2011-12-12T16:44:40Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Thank you! > > I’ve never actually seen that one as far as I recall. Personally, I prefer to stick with the actual text or the Rich Little version. 😃 Oh, man. You gotta see it. It’s the only version of A Christmas Carol worth watching. Well, also Kelsey Grammer’s version, but only so you can ogle the smokin’ hot Jane Krakowski as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Actually, here - [watch this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYFecb0UGqA) and save yourself the horror of the rest of that show. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/29 "2011-12-12T16:50:26Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I agree-Scrooge & Marley was probably a credit/short-term financing operation. There was no warehouse, so Scrooge didn’t deal in goods-plus he had only a single clerk. What do you mean, there was no warehouse? From the story, “Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, **above the warehouse door** : Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.” Emphasis added. Perhaps warehouse meant something different than it does today, but the story indicates a warehouse. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/30 "2011-12-12T17:37:41Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Oh, man. You gotta see it. It’s the only version of A Christmas Carol worth watching. Well, also Kelsey Grammer’s version, but only so you can ogle the smokin’ hot Jane Krakowski as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Actually, here - [watch this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYFecb0UGqA) and save yourself the horror of the rest of that show. Agreed. The best parts of this version are Frank Finlay as Marley, Scott, and Edward Woodward as Christmas Present. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/31 "2011-12-12T17:47:42Z")
> [@BeaMyra](#): > > Doesn’t he drive around on a bulldozer pushing all his money, gold and jewels around? Oh wait that’s Scrooge McDuck 🙂 Acutally, now I’m curious, how did Scrooge McDuck make his money? Was that ever addressed? ---
**Author:** ![Mogle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mogle/32/12021_2.png) [@Mogle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mogle)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/32 "2011-12-12T18:15:16Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Acutally, now I’m curious, how did Scrooge McDuck make his money? Was that ever addressed? Addressed by who? I don’t think there is a truly canonical source for the Duck-universe. That said, Don Rosa cover the subject pretty well in his [The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Times_of_Scrooge_McDuck). Essentially Scrooge McDuck’s first major success was during the Klondike gold rush and using the (not insignificant amount of) money he made there he traveled around the world starting businesses. Selling freezers on Greenland, lawnmowers in Sahara, that sort of things. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/33 "2011-12-12T18:27:17Z")
Here’s the scene about the debt: > [@](#): > > ‘If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man’s death,’ said Scrooge quite agonised, ‘show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!’ > > The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. > > She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play. > > At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried > > to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. > > He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer. > > ‘Is it good.’ she said, ‘or bad?’ – to help him. > > ‘Bad,’ he answered. > > ‘We are quite ruined?’ > > ‘No. There is hope yet, Caroline.’ > > ‘If he relents,’ she said, amazed, ‘there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.’ > > ‘He is past relenting,’ said her husband. ‘He is dead.’ > > She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart. > > ‘What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.’ > > ‘To whom will our debt be transferred?’ > > ‘I don’t know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!’ > > Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children’s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man’s death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. It doesn’t really explain what kind of debt they are in to Scrooge. I think the Finney version probably is the best at explaining him: he makes high interest loans and invests the proceeds in the markets. Cratchit’s job is probably figuring the cash on hand and the proceeds from investments while Scrooge handles the lending and collecting. ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2011, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/34 "2011-12-12T18:31:02Z")
[hijack]I met Don Rosa when I lived in Louisville in the mid-70s. He hung out at a small used bookstore, and I was in my mid-teens at the time. He and I weren’t friends, but we chatted at the bookstore, and there’s no way he’d remember me after 35 years, so I say this more as a “brush with greatness” story. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/35 "2011-12-13T01:09:15Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > What do you mean, there was no warehouse? … Perhaps warehouse meant something different than it does today, but the story indicates a warehouse. Oliver Twist contains a reference to a “fried fish warehouse” which sold portions of hot battered fish to the general public. [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chips#England) It would appear that Dickens sometimes used “warehouse” to mean “shop” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/36 "2011-12-13T07:03:48Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Oh, man. You gotta see it. It’s the only version of A Christmas Carol worth watching. Well, also Kelsey Grammer’s version, but only so you can ogle the smokin’ hot Jane Krakowski as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Actually, here - [watch this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYFecb0UGqA) and save yourself the horror of the rest of that show. I don’t know about _only_ ogling her. She’s easy on the eyes, to be sure, but even easier on the ears. Her voice somehow reminds me of Julie Andrews. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/37 "2011-12-13T07:17:17Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Oliver Twist contains a reference to a “fried fish warehouse” which sold portions of hot battered fish to the general public. [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chips#England) > > It would appear that Dickens sometimes used “warehouse” to mean “shop” Maybe - it could also have been a standard warehouse for fresh fish that set up a fry stand out front to get a little extra cash from the local dock workers. [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) lists "\*British _. a large retail store," as a definition for the term “warehouse,” which I take to mean things like Best Buy. Hard to imagine a shop on that scale_ only selling fish and chips, though, so I assume that wasn’t the specific usage Dickens had in mind. [sub]\*Heh.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/38 "2011-12-13T17:44:14Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > We definitely say “maize” but I’ve never even heard the term “Indian corn”. I have and still use it occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/39 "2011-12-13T18:37:21Z")
> [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](#): > > I have and still use it occasionally. “Sweetcorn” is the term I’ve encountered in the UK. I think it’s used here occasionally by farmers to differentiate it from feed corn that’s used as animal fodder, but it’s not a term you’d see on a menu or use casually. A sign at the vegetable stand might say “sweet corn” but I take that as the same construction as “fresh peaches.”. Of course at a real vegetable stand, the sign will read > [@](#): > > SWEET “CORN” and > [@](#): > > “FRESH” PEACH’S ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735/40 "2011-12-13T21:34:28Z")
Could they be a small accounting firm? It might fit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kind-of-business-did-scrooge-marley-indulge-in/605735.md?page=3)