cious
seed, that must be planted where it will grow. To merely have the loan
returned without increase does not meet his claim. To remit the
increase, to make it easier for the poor debtor to pay, he would
regard as a positive loss to himself and a gift to his victim. The
usurer prefers rich debtors, who have abundant property to secure the
loan and its increase.

There is a despised class of pawn usurers who prey upon the poor. They
are regarded as robbers of the poor in their distresses, but their
business would be impossible, were it not that all avenues of relief
are closed by usury; "interest must be paid anywhere; why not borrow
of them though the rates are high?" The moral quality of the act is
the same; the difference is wholly in the degree of turpitude.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

PER CONTRA; LAND RENTALS.

"If no interest should be charged on money, then no rents should be
collected."

The early Christian apologists for usury, who felt it imperative to
explain why it was permitted and practiced among Christians, found few
arguments. They all agreed that the letter and spirit of the
Scriptures forbade lending to the poor, upon interest. They also found
it impossible to show from reason the right of money to an increase,
but as money can readily be changed into other forms of property, as
lands, they reversed the arguments; beginning with the assumed premise
that it is right to charge rental for lands, and as money may
represent lands, it is therefore right, they say, to charge interest
on money.

"It seems as lawful for a man to receive interest for money, which
another takes pains with, improves, but runs the hazard in trade, as
it is to receive rent for our land, which another takes pains with,
improves, but runs the hazard of in husbandry."

True logic would have led them to reason forward from the truth they
had determined; that there is no valid reason justifying interest on
money. Resting on this truth, and then discovering that money may
represent lands, the necessary conclusion must be, that land rentals
are without justice. Reversing the order of their argument, they
assumed a false premise, and from it attempted to prove true the very
proposition they had found to be false.

There is the usury of lands as well as of "money or victuals."

Forty years ago the Omaha Indians went across the river and cut some
fine grass growing on open land, and carried it to their reservation.
The owner of the