Usury the scourge of nations. Money interest, an everlasting tax levied by the annuitant class on labour. Addressed to the Land and Labour League

:.7u$

Harvey, J^ines, V Lce-Presidei
of the |bttt*Honopoly Associa
tion in Liverpool

Usury the sc urge of

ns.

U S U E Y

THE

SCOURGE OP NATIONS.

MONEY INTEREST, AN EVERLASTING TAX LEVIED
BY THE ANNUITANT CLASS ON LABOUR.

ADDRESSED TO THE

LAND AND LABOUR LEAGUE,

BY JAMES HARVEY,

\ l i
CHATHAM PLACE, LIVERPOOL.

" LABOUR, THE SOURCE OF ALL WEALTH." — Adam, Smith.

" Whoever borrows at usury condemns himself to poverty. Tlio
borrower is not relieved, lie is only embarrassed. The usurer's life is
both indolent and insatiable — he gathers his harvest where he sows 1m
seed. He awakes in the morning richer than he went to bed. Desist,
oh man! from your dangerous cares — from your precarious calcula-
tions— seek no offspring from gold and silver — things naturally barren."
— Old Writer.

LONDON.

AUSTIN & Co., 17, JOHNSON'S COUET, FLEET ST., E.C.
1870.

LkrQ

Price C ne Penny ; Threepence per Do ~en.

USURY THE SCOURGE OF NAT I'

v- Daniel Le Brock, Governor <•;

market in St. LMer's, but laboured under the usual financial d
Not having tin- iVar .>!' Sir Robert Peel before h
the seal of the Island, 4000 market notes for one pound •
these the artificers were paid and tin- materials pr. do wo»

stimulated by the circuliition of the notes in payment for
the ahopfceepers derived benefit from the wages
was finished ; and when the rents came in, the n
tendered, were cancelled. The market was built without B
gold." -Jonathan Duncan ./// ////• Hunk Charter.

"Money i* generally regarded a? a bisexual animal endowed with the
ity of sol ('-increase, and with the power <.f pr

'? OH ill'' I>i/t!<//-(.

'• I hate him for in low simplicity.
]Fe lends out money gratis, ami IT
The rates of usance her i \

he rails.

Even where our merchants ni"-: d • c

On me, my bargains and my well won tliritt.

Which he call* ml /'"•/.

"Interest and usury surelv are allied.
And thin partitions do their hound- d .

cape
Mr,

Till: IKIN« II'LKS ADVOCATED IN THIS 1'AMl'ii

**THAT NO COMMODITY can fulfil the fun- 1
be it diamonds, gold, or silver. That money nature

'.uion of wealth, and not real wraith. ;i- :i liill «t
lading, or a warehouse warrant, are representations of <
or of goods warehoused; and like those instnim nts must be

documentar, <>r

THAT im, M-ATE alone can issue such paper m«.i

"Ah ! truly, this first practical form of the sphinx ques-
tion," writes Mr. Carlyle, in his " Past and Present," " in-
articulately and yet so audibly put, is one of the most
impressive ever asked in the world. Behold us here, so
many thousands — millions — and increasing at the rate of
fifty every hour. We are right willing and able to work,
and on the planet Earth is plenty of work and wages" (not
wages, Mr. Carlyle, as I will show presently, for want of
money) — " for a million times as many. We ask, if you
mean to lead us towards work ; try to lead us — by ways
new, never yet heard of till this new unheard-of time" (by
ways new. Mr. Carlyle ! yes — by adopting Representative
Paper Money instead of the absurd metallic system, embodied
in Sir Robert Peel's gold sovereign) " or if you declare you
cannot lead us, do you expect that we are to remain unled,
and, iu a composed manner, die of starvation ? What is it
you expect of us ? What is it you mean to do with us ?
This question, I say, has been put in the hearing of all
Britain, and will be again put and ever again" (this written
in 1843 — " till some answer be given."

So asks Thomas Carlyle in his " Past and Present," and
here we are in 1870, putting the same question, and getting
no answer.

" The condition of England, — on which many pamphlets
are in the course of publication, and many thoughts un-
published are going on in every reflective mind, — is justly
regarded as one of the most ominous and withal, one of the
strangest ever seen in this world. England is full of
WEALTH" (but empty of Money, Mr. Carlyle !)— "of multi-
farious produce, — supply of human want of every kind ; yet
England is dying of inanition.

" With unabated bounty the land of England blooms and
grows ; waving with yellow harvests, thick studded with
workshops, industrial implements, with 15,000,000 of
workers understood to be the strongest, cunningest, will-
ingest our earth ever had. These men are here ; the work
they have done, the fruit they have realised, is here abundant,
exuberant on every hand of us, and behold ! some baleful
fiat — fiat of enchantment" (want of Money, Mr. Carlyle)
" has gone forth, saying — * Touch it not.' "

And so Mr. Carlyle periodically breaks forth — a lugu-
brious wail, and no remedy proposed ! Now I propose a

remedy: — GIVE us PAPER MONEY — representative paper
money — paper money, issued by the State under Parlia-
mentary sanction.

EXCHEQUER NOTES, which the Government will i
nise as quittance of taxation,* and many of our evils, tho-e
arising from unrestrained Usury, would disappear.

Now for a series of questions put by Professor Ftu
the present member for Brighton : — " Here, then, is a poll t ieal
economical question of surpassing interest and impm-tano —
How is it that this vast production of wealth," (and yet Aris-
tocratic and middle-class dec/aimers affect to denounce the
producers of tliis vast wealth as an idle, drunken* dissolute
mass of degraded beings /) "does not lead to a happier distri-
bution ? How is IT that the rich seem constantly
growing richer, while the poverty of the poor is not \>
tibly diminished ? "f

Let us tell the Professor " How IT is." First, by the
increase of exorbitant USURY, owing to the dfcri-iisin^
quantity of money relatively as compared with production.
Secondly, by the increase of exorbitant increase of I
demanded from 30,000,000 of us in these islands, li
in extent.

But as one subject is even more than can be done justice
to in a few panics, I shall abstain from saying a word <>:i
LAND and its proper tenure, and confine myself to M«>'
its nature, philosophy, and use. "Money," as Bishop
Berkeley asks in his " Querist," " the nature of which do men
understand, although they so eagerly pursue it?"

\«»\v, li-.w is it, that the man possessing money is a1
demand INTI RKS/T- -in tin- case of the pawnbroker, bill-
discounter, Mini professed money-lender, USURIOUS r
— that is v, .-irlv payment for the use of h;
Itis because MONEY, bein^mado. of tlie d. ;ire-t metal known,
is always scarce or dear as measured against commodities.

* The Assignats lost their value, hooausr
to receive them in payment of Tuxes.
f See Appendix.

j I P.-I;. >r the Kink-not .« in no additi'>

it is only a "promi-i* !• i-cii:n*, tlia1

pound note, you ran on presenting it ;\t tin- Kn '
which is thnv withdrawn from circulation ready for ;\ou. v
is merely a certificate, or fire sovereigns in a portal-ie form.

5

Now, what the Monetary Reformers * advocate is, that
MONY should not consist of the dearest metal known, but
should be a mere paper instrument, authorised by the State,
and issued in sufficient quantities to bring Interest — if not
to the point of utter annihilation — at least to the lowest
possible rate.

INTEREST OF MONEY is a most glaring robbery committed
by designing usurers and by annuitants on the class who live
by labour, and the objections to it are : —

First. — THAT IT is AN ANNUAL PAYMENT EXACTED FROM
LABOUR for the use of an instrument of exchange, which is
made artificially dear, when it might be made in any
quantity.

Second. — THAT IT LASTS FOR EVER.

Third. — THAT IT RECOGNIZES THE ARISTOCRATIC PRIN-
CIPLE that the son may be rewarded for the virtues (virtues !)
of the father.

Fourth. — THAT SIMPLE INTEREST INEVITABLY CREATES
COMPOUND INTEREST.

First. — THAT IT is AN ANNUAL PAYMENT EXACTED FROM
LABOUR.

Now when we recollect that LABOUR is THE SOURCE OF ALL
WEALTH, why should labour be asked to pay this heavy fine
for the use of an instrument which, but for that labour,
would have no value ? Of what use would sovereigns be
in the desert of Sahara ? What value did Robinson Crusoe
attach to the ducats, pieces of eight and Spanish dollars he
found in the wreck ? If a man has the skill and industry to
make a table or a chair, why should he be forbidden to put
forth his powers, till he can find some CAPITALIST (this is a
wrong term, as I will show — it ought to be MONIED MAN),
who can lend him or advance him certain disks of gold !

If LABOUR is the source of wealth, LABOUR should be the

* In consequence of the Tunes, and indeed all tlie penny papers and
monthly serials, studiously suppressing this question under the pretence
of its being dry and hard to understand, the monetary reformers are
obliged to confine themselves to pamphlets, the authors of which I
will venture to name. Rev. John Twells, Rigby Wason, Richard
Salt, Samuel Groddard, J. Capps, Charles Hay ward, Col. Macdonald,
Alexander Wilson, the late Jonathan Duncan, &c., Bishop Berkeley in
his "Querist": — Yarranton in Charles II.'s time, and Sir John Sinclair in
Pitt's time, advocated the true principles of money.

source of MONKY. As the subatance comes into existence,
so should the shadow.

The only tiling wanted is that men should work. If they
will work, every facility should l>e given to them, and not diili-
culty, in compelling them to go to the monicd man, generally
their employers, for advances.

Second. — THAT IT LASTS FOR EVER.

Not for a few years — not for centuries — but for ever ! If
the father dies, the sou must pay; if the husband dies, the
widow must pay.

But let us take the most striking illustration of this cruel
and unnecessary exaction — THE NATIONAL Di.r.i. It began
in Dutch William's reign,* and gradually ineiva-rd till at
the beginning of George III.'s reign it was 100,000,000.
Now in 1870, it is 800,000,000, and on thi-
800,000,000 the nation will have paid, say by 1880,
3,000,000,000; but in 1880 will the debt be extinguished ?
No, it will go on for centuries, and as war lias not <
among nations, but becomes more expensive every
instead of being extinguished the debt will augment — a pretty
prospect for our children !

The taxation to meet this does not fallen the rents of
the landlords, as it ought to do, for the debt wa< incurred
to defend the landlords in tie on of t!i

nor on the hoards of the MONEY LORDS, but on the tea,
spirits, tobacco, and malt consumed by the pn.plr ; the bur-
then has been thrown on the people — on labour. Now it is
not for a moment to be supposed that the French woul'
have succeeded in compelling the English people to pay
them tribute, year by year, of 26,000,000 (history d<>e->
not present us with the" spectacle of our nati«i
such a sum from another.) and therefore it is evident that
our internal enemy, the FUNDT:< i IM i;.
more cruel exactor, than any foreign enemy could he. ( Mirs

* To whom wo are indebted for the funding system.

mortgnj^iiiL' th. 1-iK.iir «>t' unborn ponerations, n s\stnn wh
to such mormon- dimensions, with ;i ]>:•

future wars, thai it threatens tlu> (!:--< .lution of society. ;md the de-
cadence of the onet ^'lorioiH and ha]i]i\ English nation. It' i]
future war, tin- i:m]>eror of :!;

23 -T L'-l shilling, \v(> phoiild he i

We should be without : • -oidd not fit on- ui(. an

army.

is indeed, an Egyptian bondage. We are " compelled to
make bricks without straw" — wo are compelled to pay this
enormous sum in sovereigns of " the full weight and
fineness."*

This lien on Labour — eternal ! — therefore makes you and
me pay INTEREST, year by year, on the gold lace on the
uniform of Marlborough's officers — on the gunpowder con-
sumed in Queen Anne's wars — on the men-of-war lost under
Sir Cloudesley Shovel on the Scilly Islands 120 years since
— on the fleets and armies fitted out in the contest with the
American Colonies and in the Napoleonic wars.

Another illustration of the everlasting claim for Interest
is that of Railways.

To make a railway it is necessary to raise the money —
sovereigns ! — in shares among monied people. The railway
is made. And, for ever after, the shareholder sits there, like
the old man of the island on Sinbad's back, demanding his
3, or 4, or 5, or 6, or 7 per cent, (more if he could get it)
on the receipts from traffic. Travelling is so much dearer
by that claim. f

Third. — THAT IT RECOGNIZES THK ARISTOCRATIC PRIN-
CIPLE that the sou may be rewarded for the virtues — often
vices ! — of the father.

The middle class, the great recipients of Interest, declaim
in Parliament and on platforms on the evils of an hereditary
peerage. Mr. Bright denounced the landed aristocracy as a
" bloated aristocracy." Now Mr. Bright belongs to a
"bloated aristocracy" of much more injurious character,
seeing that it not only robs Labour, but — through its with-
holding employment by refusing Money, except at a high
price, — it keeps the working classes in a state of utter degra-
dation and misery.

As the landed aristocracy live on the monopoly of land,
so does the monied aristocracy live on thu monopoly of
money.

* It is proposed to jnake it penal to offer a light sovereign, and yet
Mr. Lowe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told us that one- third of
the sovereigns in circulation are light. But the currency question is an
abstruse question ! — and we are not to look into it !

t And the navvy who made the railway is put into a third class
carriage, a miserable box with small windows. Query, should not the
navvy be free of all railways for life ?

A man leaves a fortune, as it is called, to his son — that
fortune being after all, by certain parchments* and d
and scrips and papers, a mere claim on the labour of others :
that son becomes an annuitant. This son has some \
idea that his money is rained from heaven ; but the truth is.
his income is the result of the labour of tens, hundreds,
and, in the case of some of the millionaire class, of thousands
of -working men, in foundries, in yards, in factor!.
mines, in fields, in quarries. Let this son invest in a rail-
way, say 10,000/. His annual income at 4 per cent, is KM)/.,
and this derived from the labours, first of the engi;
excavators, iron railmakers, platelayers, &c., and afterwards
from the labours of station-masters, engine-drivers, p<
&c. Where Avould his income be if the labour of the>e
workers were suspended ?

" The son to be rewarded for the virtues of the father ! "
say rather vices — for these immense fortunes arc as often
the result of stock-jobbing, land speculation, and watching
the turn of the markets, and of penuriousness, a griping over-
reaching, deaf to all the claims of kindred or of country,
as the fruits of industry, — in fact the greater tlie avarice
of the father, — the more keenly he avails himself of the
extortions of compound interest,! — the greater the reward
to the son !

Fourth. — THAT SIMPLE INTEREST INEVITABLY ci.i
COMPOUND IXTKUERT.

What anomalies do we see, the fruit of interest of money

* M Parchments, lerahle, hul they ou^l::

••ar as by posfihili' > : <>f tlii<

adamantine tallies, other

Jew" (like our annuitant clots))" in vain pleaded paivl,
were too main . The King said " (Ah .' si

'•••hineiits thou shall p .
down with she dust or observe toil

f The working of compound interest is little ui
pounds laid out a' a in the \ear isiM), Mould douhl,

everv t in isyo it woula amount

in a ceniMr\ U) 1 '_*' >,' H K)/. ! \\ sum tin- creditor m.iv di'iuand 0

who h: 'io\v the imprar! icahili '

al)-ui-d:'\ '-I Compound interest it has been e-ilcnlnted that ;i HO\

Ivinu' ai ("impound interest I'n.ni the v !

anioiip.t in its acOUmulation to a nia.-s of Kold eipial to tlie luilk of the

earth ! l»ut if simple interest bo allowed, compound interest follows as

a natural consequ*

and its monstrous progeny — COMPOUND INTEREST 1 Good
for nothing old men and women, in the last stage of imbe-
cility, and unable to enjoy their iniquitous extortions
(sanctioned by law), rising in a morning many pounds
richer than they went to bed, — I say sanctioned by law,
for Sir Robert Peel, who, by the law of 1844 made the
sovereign our only money, abolished the Usury Laws.
These exactors must be told that their incomes are the
fruits of the labour of hard working men in factories, in
foundries, in fields, in quarries, in fishing-boats on stormy
coasts, — of labour beginning at early dawn and continued
till dewy eve.

Everybody condemns usury. No vice is more severely
denounced in the Bible, but priests, clergymen, and minis-
ters never allude to it from their pulpits. They know too
well whence contributions and pew rents are derived. These
ministers of religion are the obsequious and flattering
slaves of the monied power.

With a population compelled to labour in order to live,
and with raw material in abundance, why should not the
progress of the nation in wealth * be infinite ; but lo ! the
usurer steps in and says : " No ! first find me in a per-
centage in sovereigns or you shall not touch trowel, saw,
hammer, or spade." Under this restriction of the quantity
of money, the annuitant class, — the monied class, — is con-
stantly increasing. Bring an estate into higher cultivation
through labour, and the landlord is enabled to demand
higher rent — he is enabled to take one of those palacts
which rise like exhalations at the West- end. Make a new
railway by labour ! and forthwith the shareholders occupy
those magnificent terraces which extend for miles about
Kensington ; or those villas which encircle the large towns.

New swarms rush down the Rhine, climb the Alps, or
infest the streets of Paris and of Rome. In the mean
time, 10,000 are reported as reduced to the last stage of
destitution in East London !

Nor are we come to the worst.

The sovereign, I reiterate, being our only money, this law

* By wealth is meant wellth, the Saxon word for well-being— good
clothes, decent, roomy cottages, various and nutritious food, with a
sufficiency of leisure and books and pictures. Why not ?

10

of 1844 enacts that the immense annual production of real
wealth — houses, food, and clothing, for an increasing popu-
lation*— this production aided by the wonderful mechanical
powers of the present day, and computed by Lord Overstone
at 100,000,000 added year by year to our national capital,
— shall be measured against a quantum of gold estimated by
Professor Jevons at only 80,000,000, with tin- annual addi-
tion of some 3,000,000 of new-coined sovereigns. t

LABOUR, TIIK SOURCE OF ALL WEALTH. — 1 rch-r to this
first principle laid down in the title page, and illustrated by
-the GUERNSEY MARKET. Labour, the source of all wealth,
should be the source of all money, and not gold, which,
though endoAved with the functions and privileges of ID
is yet a commodity which may, whenever Rothschild
his way to a profit, be exported.^ leaving us gasping Ironi
loss of "the life blood of trade/' — of the only ihinir. in
which by Peel's cruel law we can pay our debts and taxes.

Apply the GUERNSEY MARKET PRINCIPLE to a railway.^
The urgent want of a railway is felt in a certain di>triet.
Application is made to a certain Government (loj>artinent,
who, on assuring themselves of the feasibility of the repre-
sentation, furnish Exchequer notes — without interest — and
with these they pay the engineers, the railmaker,-, tin
valors, and this without the intervention of the money man
or shareholder, who will "find his occupation gone-."

LAHOUK EXERTED ON MATERIAL. — There is no want of
labour in the country, and, as to raw material, the earth

* It is computed that a population, equal to Hint of
added to our numbers « \

I0l a single sovereign \v;is coined.
\ That exportation leads to Panic.

,;Ii(- money, hovrerer, being wrong in prim-ip: 11 for

nobody. Tlie rich have lar^e < 'k, but

it they lia]>].ni to iv> for their deposits in loo pvat numb.

do this \vlien ereclit isshaky — " <vW//, .<n^,

bank the Contagion 0pr are run* on all tin- banks, who. in

their turn, run on tin- Hank of Kimlaml. which, in it.- turn. In-.

,n i-rr. L867, • i I8fl '•. "i»<l 1": PtoioJ " H"-

and ll\

§ "^es; and to tho 'I '.inkment.

-tinkiiiL' mud-flats into a noblr ijuay — tin- most valuable land in
the world but instead of a money paper i--ned on thi> valuable land,
.they op London by grievous a;

able r

11

itself is composed of raw material ; — square miles of brick
clay, mountains of lime and slate, timber covering degrees
of latitude, iron, lead, marble, coal. These have only to be
worked up by labour, and houses, food, and clothing might
be supplied in abundance. But to bring labour and raw
material into healthy relations a third requisite is wanting —
MONEY. The bullionist says, "For money you must go to
the antipodes and dig a certain metal." We say, " MAKE
MONEY," following the advice contained in Bishop Berkeley's
query, ''Whether the stamp and signature and authority of
the State, with its obligation to recognise its own issue, does
not give paper the significance of gold?" Make money of
paper issued under the sanction of Parliament.* With this
paper money what great works might be undertaken ! How
might England be cultivated up to high water mark — More-
cambe Bay and the Wash and all estuaries be embanked
and cultivated ! How might the soil, now carried down into
river valleys by the rains of a thousand years from hill sides
and slopes, be returned, spreading fertility over exhausted
districts ; — how might the sewerage of towns be carried to
the country round ? As it is, no great work, implying
heavy first outlay, dare even be contemplated.

The Barking Creek works are stopped in mid-career ; —
they are obliged to pollute the Thames at Erith with the
sewerage of London, which, with the brick conduit pipes
completed, would have made the wilderness of Maplin sands
smile like the rose. Whole counties might be brought into
higher cultivation, whilst thousands of acres near the large
towns might be covered with glass, f creating an artificial
climate for the fruit and early vegetables now so dear. A
great want in towns might be supplied, namely, subways^ for
sewers, and gas and water-pipes. None of these great and
useful works can be effected, for we have first to satisfy the
monied man that he will secure his four or five pounds every

* As Parliament consists of monied men and landed magnates, it will
be vain to look for its consent till the further aggravation of misery and
want of employment drive the people to desperation, and even then, is
there intelligence enough to take up the question ? No ! the pick of our
population are emigrating.

t What is glass but soda and sand vitrified by heat ?

J The ultimate saving of such subways would be immense, but no !
Peel's Bill stops the way — no money !

12

year for every hundred advanced of the "needful " — needful
indeed, under the insane theory of gold.

But if interest of money is abolished, what would you do
with annuitants .' I have no call to look at the i;

•lass built on an injustice and a robbery. If gold
money is wrong in principle — if INTEEEST is a fraud, the
annuitants must be provided for in some other way. ^Ir.
Lowe's idea might be carried out. All above a certain ago
might be protected by a National Mutual Life Insurance,
but this is not an inquiry I am bound to prosecute — if
interest of money is wrong, annihilate it.

The MIDDLE CLASS, i.e., the monied class, is afraid of this
question. They cry through their press that capital and
labour are friends. True CAPITAL, i.e., labour in esse is the.
friend and true assistant of labour in posse, but not v.
The middle class have the Parliament in their keeping ; all
the members are landed or monied men. They extended
the suffrage under the pretence that the doors of the con-
stitution might be opened to the working men. lint.
what do we see? In vain has Mr. Odger been elected .MS
their representative man, and been put up lor Smithwark
and Bristol ; the middle class set up one of their body, :;nd
then cry out — "Don't divide the Liberal interest/' In a
body of GOO they won't permit the admisHun of one.

The press, " the best possible public instructor" — the
press, headed by the Times, the organ of the monied p-»wer
and tailed by the Penny Press, — is the property of capi-
talists, and reflects their interests and ideas, but it is a
delusion to suppose that it is the mouthpiece of labour and
labourers. Even the }><•< Hire is devoted only to the
interests of the Trades' Unions — inouopt li>ts in their way
— and Mr. liradhmgh's X<i/ionnl Hcjornicr is a nusunm-
it confines its speculations chielly to questions of metaphy-
sical theology, and has treated this monetary question in a
spirit savouring of contempt.

The wonder is, that the middle class with large families*
cannot see that the battle of labour is their battle : tor it is
inipi'ssihh- that they can leave their chil-iron enough t<
them from being dependent on labour. Let these, tin-
harassed class in the nation, once see the questions oi

* The writer of this is of tin- middle class, and has a large family.

13

and INTEREST in the proper light, and their intelligence and
energy would furnish leaders to a movement and an agitation
unparalleled in this country.

This increase in the value of land or space, coupled with
this increase in the value of MONEY, is the cause of the un-
easiness and discontent prevailing among the nations of
Europe. Even in America a landed and monied aristocracy
is raising its head.

The rich, however, bate not one jot on their claims.
Their rents and their interest must be paid to the day,
and in sovereigns.*

The French revolution has taught them nothing, nor
has it taught us ; we have drawn no lesson from that por-
tentous event — from its absurd mismanagement of the great
questions of Land and Money. The noblesse came back
to claim the fee simple of the land, and the assignats threw
discredit on paper money simply because the Directory
refused to recognise its own issue as legal tender for
taxes.

But will our coming revolution bear any better fruit ?
It is to be feared that the people cannot be taught in
time. The delusion in favour of gold f is too deeply im-
planted to be dissipated in time, and Thomas Carlyle only
embodies the general feeling that convulsion is imminent
by his expressive phrase — " We are shooting Niagara," —
We are on the brink of an abyss of roaring tumult, whirl-
pools of popular fury, of tumult, confusion, and turbulence.

* The Marquis of Belgrave, the newspapers tell us, is, on the expiry
of the West-end leases, to come into the possession of 10,000£. a day.
lie may exact this to the day from his tenants in sovereigns, of the full
weight and fineness, and if it so pleased him he might bury these sove-
reigns in vaults, as does the Emperor of Morocco.

f Debasing the coin is a favourite object of denunciation with histo-
rians and editors. Pray what did Mr. Gladstone do when he lessened
the size of the penny? Dean Swift, too, pandered to popular prejudice
when in Drapier's Letters he denounced Wood's copper coinage.

1 1

AT 1' !•: N I) I X.

USURY.

v brought down the- Roman Ki:.
which is a by-word for bad government, is really
of a bail money system. As Turkey is a i.
of the evils of usury, I give an extract from Mi. H
Arnold's recent work in the Levant, iclt( /••
Arm /ii<tn /.->• the chief trafficker in in<»ic>/, ;!
lender, in fact, the usurer; for tin- Mahmiu ••.
custom, and religion debarred fron.
anathematised by their creed ai:«l discreditable in tli-
of society. "The Armenian scale," writes .Mr. Arnold.
" varies from 24 to CO per cent., sometimes 1
tract, sometimes as a disguised loan, frequently l>v compound
interest." All classes are victims, but tl
naturally the poor, and more especially tin.- p.-a-
Tnrkish, no Arab landlord would «

;ctin<i a tenant (hear this oh Iri>h landlords), but our
• in Christian" usurer will ; and when, as is :
the case, the usurer can ^ain to his help tl,.

nime.it, eviction with all its rrMilt.- of mi-. : .
and ?iolencc (lor Whitchoys arc not pr«-nliar \« I:

1 out over wi.lc i :,tire vili:..

thus unroofed, and enltivated lands 1,-t't i«.
downright (h-solation. i pean tr.\

with staple ideas about Tui-ki-h opj)H iian's

horse hoc, l<. baibarinn rule, and the like, — sec
tin- \\;.\ ,de, and notes, I'oi nt |>nl)li'

observations on the
the fatal ! ••-nils of ( Mtoinan .

tions which his Greek dragoman will !irin ;

and the-e \\ill. jti-rhrtps, be repeated and
ment. Hut, roiihl he know the real, the ftetiYC «
tlii> «!<•>-. lation. his \ away,

and would tran^tonn himself into no other th:i;

15

money lender, the usurer whose cent, per cant, has taken
away "the upper garment and the very millstone, not for
pledge, but sale."

Such are the evils of unrestrained usury in a foreign
country ; but let us look at home, and we shall see that,
owing to Sir Robert Peel's abolition of the usury laws,
(which laws made this cruel exaction penal) the money-lender
here, in this civilized moral Christian country, may levy
black mail on trade, on industry, and walk in the midst of
us unpunished and unabashed.

THE FOOLISH TASTES OF THE ARISTOCRACY.

COSTLY CHINA. — Extraordinary prices, unprecedented
even when the rage for "old china" was at its wildest,
were realised at a sale the other day of two choice col-
lections of old Sevres china — the first belonging to the late
Marchioness of Londonderry, and the second to Mr. Rucker,
a gentleman well known for his taste as a connoisseur.
Some of the prices are worth quoting. A " matchless
oviform vase and cover" brought 860 guineas, the Earl
of Dudley being the purchaser. His lordship also gave
275 guineas "for a cup and saucer," 900 guineas for "a
fine large vase and cover," 860 guineas for " a matchless
clock," and 206 guineas for " a teapot and basin." A
magnificent cabinet, the finest specimen of old black buhl
furniture known, was knockerl down at 3800 guineas.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BEEHIVE.

SIR, — I have often called the attention of the readers of
the Beehive to the fact that the rich are becoming too rich
and the poor too poor in this country, and that this deplor-
able state of things is caused by the operation of rent
always increasing, and interest of money, or usury, also
increasing. Above is an instance of the ridiculous way
in which our landed aristocracy fool away their money.
Did it ever strike this Lord Dudley that his money is the
result of labour, the hard, ill-paid labour of the men in the
iron district of which he is the proprietor (I should say
holder). Suppose this money, instead of being thrown
away on articles of vertu, had been expended in improv-
ing the cottages of the men whose labour is the source and

•spring of his enormous income, or suppose this territorial
lord had put his estates under garden cultivation, would lu»
not have increased the happiness of .-ill around him, and
would he not have increased his own happiness ? Thes--
rich seem to think that their wealth is rained from he
and that they are responsible neither to their va>-als nor to
the nation at large for the proper and judicious expenditure
of their incomes. It will be my business, and that of other
of your correspondents, to show them the folly and wicked-
ness of their reckless an-d insane expenditure. One word —
There was such an event as the French Involution, and that
revolution was caused by the purchase ot a diamond
lace by Marie Antoinette !

JAMES II A KYI r,
Chatham Place, Liverpool, 22nd April, 1869.

CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE OF BARON
ROTHSCHILD.

The following anecdote was intended to show P.aron
Rothschild's "benevolence;" it only indicates enormous
usury — somebody was robbed: — "One of your contri-
butors in a recent article mentions an anecdote in which
the Baron James de Rothschild is represented as having
sat for a beggar before Scheiler, the painter. This aneedotr
is perfectly true, but it is not complete. Here are the
particulars : — While the banker, covered with rags and
tatters, was putting himself into position before the artist,
I entered the studio. Feeling touched with the misi-
appearance of my friend's model, 1 approached him, and
placed a louis in his hand, which he at once put into his
pocket. Ten years later I received one morning a I
containing a cheque for 10,000 francs, with the following
words: — 'Sir, — One day you gave a louis to m«- in tin-
studio of Ary Scheffer. I linve made of it. and
ith send you the little capital, with interest A ir<>od
action is never lost. Your grateful servant, Karon .1
de Rothschild.' I immediately went (•> Rothschild's bank,
where I found the baron, who showed me how the loni- had
1) en made to reach the great sum of 10,000 francs."

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