"Usurious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis was really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did business secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such peasants as were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could be bought for a song. The two men were in a position to choose their opportunities; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the profits ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... the same terms. The mildest mode of reproof was by delivering them tablets [180], the contents of which, confined to themselves, they were to read on the spot. Some he disgraced for borrowing money at low interest, and letting it out again upon usurious profit. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... interest in retaining it, and is not driven by the distresses of the present moment to destroy the future productiveness of the soil. Any rent which the landlord accepts more than this, or any system by which more rent than this is obtained, is to borrow money upon the most usurious and profligate interest—to increase the revenue of the present day by the absolute ruin of the property. Such is the effect produced by a middleman; he gives high prices that he may obtain higher from the occupier; more is paid by the actual occupier than is consistent with the safety and ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... whom I cannot distinguish from Caffres, are scattered all over the colony, and rival the English as workmen and labourers—fine stalwart, industrious fellows. Our little 'boy' Kleenboy hires a room for fifteen shillings a month, and takes in his compatriots as lodgers at half a crown a week—the usurious little rogue! His chief, one James, is a bricklayer here, and looks and behaves like a prince. It is fine to see his black arms, ornamented with silver bracelets, hurling ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... induced to follow. But even the civil magistrates must also suffer reforms to be enacted in their particular spheres; especially are they called on to do away with the rude "gluttony and drunkenness," luxury in clothing, the usurious sale of rents and the common brothels. This, by divine and human right, is a part of their enjoined works ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... by in his carriage this great khawaja, when we were coming out of the pottery. And of a truth, his paunch and double chin and ruddy cheeks seemed to illustrate what the priest told me about his usurious propensities. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... such exactions: the people rejoiced, when they saw the Jews plundered,—not considering that they were a sort of agents for the crown, who, in proportion to the heavy taxes they paid, were obliged to advance the terms and enforce with greater severity the execution of their usurious contracts. Through them almost the whole body of the nobility were in 'debt to the king; and when he thought proper to confiscate the effects of the Jews, the securities passed into his hands; and by this means he must have possessed one of the strongest and most terrible instruments ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... great reformer who amongst a thousand plans for reinfusing vitality into Roman polity was well understood to be digesting a large measure of relief to the hopeless debtor? What lunacy to believe that the ordinary citizen, crouching under the insupportable load of his usurious obligations, could be at leisure to support a few scores of lordly senators panic-stricken for the interests of their own camarilla, when he beheld—taking the field on the opposite quarter—one, the greatest of men, who ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... He will rue his madness. I warned him. Now let him seek apples in the orchards of Sodom! Let him lay his parched lips to the treacherous waves of the Dead Sea! Oh, I pity the fool! I tried to save him, but he would seal his own doom. Let him pay the usurious school-fees ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... made for fixing the interest of money at ten per cent.; the first legal interest known in England. Formerly all loans of that nature were regarded as usurious. The preamble of this very law treats the interest of money as illegal and criminal; and the prejudices still remained so strong, that the law permitting interest was repealed in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... rather insinuated, that officers of the Bank have loaned money at usurious rates of interest. Suppose this to be true, are we to send a committee of this House to inquire into it? Suppose the committee should find it true, can they redress the injured individuals? Assuredly not. If ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... with the various practices of usurious oppression; but cannot omit my transaction with Squeeze on Tower-hill, who, finding me a young man of considerable expectations, employed an agent to persuade me to borrow five hundred pounds, to be refunded by an annual ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... I lend mine only ready-money 'now,' "For vain usurious 'Then' like thine, avaunt, a ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... try his fortune. He set sail in a 200-ton vessel, and after many fruitless efforts succeeded in raising from a depth of between six and seven fathoms, (considered but a small depth now-a-days) property to the value of about 300,000 pounds. Of this sum the usurious Earl obtained as his share 90,000 pounds while Phipps received 20,000 pounds. Although James the Second had refused to aid in the expedition, he had the wisdom to recognise the good service done to mankind ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... pledge to endear Her interests, or that gives her sacred cause A moment's operation on his love, He burns with most intense and flagrant zeal To serve his country. Ministerial grace Deals him out money from the public chest, Or, if that mine be shut, some private purse Supplies his need with an usurious loan, To be refunded duly, when his vote, Well-managed, shall have earned its worthy price. Oh, innocent compared with arts like these, Crape and cocked pistol and the whistling ball Sent through the traveller's temples! He that finds One drop of heaven's sweet mercy in his cup, Can ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... universal aspiration. In line with this attitude comes Mercadet with his trials and schemes. Scenes of ridiculous surprises succeed each other till by the return of the absconder with a large fortune, the greedy, usurious creditors are at last paid in full, and poetic justice is satisfied by the marriage of Julie to the poor man of ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... The L1,200 were forestalled—your father was penniless. The money-lender came upon Willy. Sure that Charles Haughton would yet redeem his promise, Willy renewed the bill another three months on usurious terms; those months over, he came to town to find your father hiding between four walls, unable to stir out for fear of arrest. Willy had no option but to pay the money; and when your father knew that it was so paid, and that the usury had swallowed up the whole of Willy's ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fledgling in years when he entered the House of Commons, quickly took the measure of the members, and conceived for them a fine scorn, which some say he exhibited in italics and upper case. This was charged up against him to be paid for later at usurious interest. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Americans, Spanish, and others. Among the semi-charitable or benevolent institutions must be mentioned the famous Monte de Piedad, or National Pawnshop, which, as its name implies, carries on the business of such for the benefit of poor people, who thus avoid the usurious rates of interest of private pawnbrokers. This worthy institution was founded in 1775, by Terreros, Count of Regla, of mining fame, and during a single month of 1907 the establishment and its branches loaned money to the people against articles ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... the story of the old Governor of Goa, who wanted money and summoned the usurers, and they wanted security; whereupon he laid his Hidalgo hand on a cataract of Kronos-beard across his breast, and pulled forth three white hairs, and presented them: 'And as honourably to the usurious Jews as to the noble gentleman himself, that security ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not rest in peace; (Beside th' affront to call th' adviser in, Who would prevent, to justify the sin): She therefore told him that "he vainly tried To soothe her anger, conscious that he lied; If thus he grasp'd at such usurious gains, He must deserve, and should expect her pains." The charge was strong; he would in part confess Offence there was—But, who offended less? "What! is a mere assertion call'd a lie? And if it be, are men compell'd to ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... humiliation, resignation and oppression, had he passed at his father's side, ever suspected by him, ever watched with jealous eyes, and forcibly denied any participation in the administration of the government, ever struggling with care, even for daily food, and forced to borrow at usurious rates of interest to provide even a meager support for his little household. It had been a severe school, but Frederick William had passed through it with a brave spirit and cheerful determination. Across the dark and gloomy present his clear eye had ever been directed to ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... lowest quotation was 141. . . . An advance of three and a half per cent. in five hours. At the same time the Stock Market exhibited tokens of excessive febrility, New York Central dropping twenty-three per cent. and Harlem thirteen. Loans had become extremely difficult to negotiate. The most usurious prices for a twenty-four hours' turn were freely paid. The storm was palpably reaching ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that joys of sense, The more their pleasure is intense, More certainly demand again Usurious interest of pain; ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... tasted each other's blood, as a pledge of their fidelity. [48] In the palace, or prison, of Constantinople, the successor of Augustus demolished the vacant houses for winter fuel, and stripped the lead from the churches for the daily expense of his family. Some usurious loans were dealt with a scanty hand by the merchants of Italy; and Philip, his son and heir, was pawned at Venice as the security for a debt. [49] Thirst, hunger, and nakedness, are positive evils: but wealth is relative; and a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... papal theory, which denounced usurious practices, an immense papal banking system had sprung up, in connection with the Curia, and sums at usurious interest were advanced to prelates, place. hunters, and litigants. The papal bankers were privileged; all others were under the ban. The Curia had discovered that it was ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... failed, through no fault of his own, and as he had borrowed money at usurious rates on his expected profits, he found himself compelled to fly once more from his creditors. After spending a short time in Switzerland, he went to Stuttgart, where he persuaded his friend Weissheimer to go with him into the Suabian Alps, where he intended to hide for half a year, until ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Hortebise, have indulged our every whim, and have spent gold like water, while our friend garnered his harvest and stored it away. But poor Catenac has no expensive tastes, nor does he care for women or the pleasures of the table. While we indulged in every pleasure, he lent out his money at usurious interest. But, stop,—how much do you spend ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... disgusted and disappointed with the ordinary avocations of the Forum,—its low standard of virtue, and its diversion of what is ennobling in the pure fountains of natural justice into the turbid and polluted channels of deceit, chicanery, and fraud; its abandonment to usurious calculations and tricks of learned and legalized jugglery, by which the end of law itself was baffled and its advocates alone enriched. But what else could be expected of lawyers in those days and in that wicked city, or even in any city of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... they were made in their wars and quarrels. The most certain knowledge is that the most powerful made the others slaves, and seized them for slight cause or occasion, and many times for loans and usurious contracts which were current among them. The interest, capital, and debt, increased so much with delay that the borrowers became slaves. Consequently all these slaveries have violent and unjust beginnings; and most of the suits among the natives are ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... easy task to purvey luxuries to the imperious Briton, to hold the extravagant underlings in his usurious clutches, to be at peace with Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Pathan, Ghoorka, Persian, and Armenian, and to blur his easy-going Mohammedanism in a generous participation in all sins of omission ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... influence of the Bible on Proudhon is no less manifest in his first memoir on property. Proudhon undoubtedly brought to this work many ideas of his own; but is not the very foundation of ancient Jewish law to be found in its condemnation of usurious interest and its denial of the right of personal ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... have got wind of it, and therefore his masters must take care and make Wyllykyn and Peter Bale pay at Calais, 'but as for your dealings knoweth no man, without they search Peter Bale's books.'[41] The upright Betson no doubt eschewed such tricks and resented particularly the clever usurious Lombards, so full of financial dodges to trick the English merchant, for did they not buy the wool in England on credit, riding about as they list ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... from city to city, falling daily into lower practice. It is to be considered that he had been taught, and had learned as a delightful duty, a kind of business whose highest merit is to escape the commentaries of the bench: that of the usurious lawyer in a county town. With this training, he was now shot, a penniless stranger, into the deeper gulfs of cities; and the result is scarce a thing to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... such outrages upon the Jews as have disgraced the Eastern nations who have been guilty of them, Englishmen should hesitate before they fix the blame upon the government of any country in which they occur. The Jews are the chief traders in Roumania, and if they are exorbitant and usurious the way to meet them is by competition and enterprise on the part of the native traders, not by invective ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... to call on me to-morrow," replied Victorin, "but will he be satisfied by my guarantee on a mortgage? I doubt it. Those men insist on ready money to sweat others on usurious terms." ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... it, that we make such an ado about it? And what is constancy, that it commands such usurious interest? The one is a foible only in its relations. The other is only thus a virtue. "Fickle as the winds" is our death-seal upon a man; but should we like our winds un-fickle? Would a perpetual Northeaster lay us open to perpetual ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... carried a small Bible in his coat-pocket. He had also a great folio Bible on his counting-house desk, and would frequently be found reading it when people called on business; on such occasions he would lay his green spectacles in the book, to mark the place, while he turned round to drive some usurious bargain. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... upon the Manuscripts of Don Rage, Ex-Prior of the Benedictines, and published by his two Nephews, A. de Villargle and Lord R'Hoone. This work brought him in eight hundred francs in the form of long-period promissory notes, which he was obliged to discount at a usurious rate, besides sharing the profits with his collaborator. Nevertheless the fact that he had earned money renewed his faith in his approaching deliverance, and he uttered a prolonged and joyous shout. He informed Laure of his success, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... the Restoration; brother of Abbe Cruchot; uncle of President Cruchot de Bonfons. He as well as the prelate was much concerned with making the match between his nephew and Eugenie Grandet. The young girl's father entrusted M. Cruchot with his usurious dealings and probably with all his money matters. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Of late I have opened a pawnbroker's shop for my hard-pressed brethren in feathers, lending at a fearful rate of interest; for every borrowing Lazarus will have to pay me back in due time by monthly instalments of singing. I shall have mine own again with usury. But were a man never so usurious, would he not lend a winter seed for a summer song? Would he refuse to invest his stale crumbs in an orchestra of divine instruments and a choir of heavenly voices? And to-day, also, I ordered from a nursery-man more trees of holly, juniper, and fir, since the storm-beaten cedars will have ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... doubled since its organization, but the amount of good which it has been the means of accomplishing cannot be estimated. Its first effect was to break up all the private pawn-brokers' establishments which charged usurious interest for money, its own rates being placed at a low figure, intended barely to meet necessary expenses. These exceedingly low rates have always been scrupulously maintained. The average annual loans on pledges amount to ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... M. de Rennepont's will; the latter having declared his desire to the grandfather of the Samuels, that the capital should only be augmented by interest at five per cent.—so that the fortune might come to his descendants free from all taint of usurious speculation. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... summer was little less than hardihood, considering the sort of a community in which he lived. He was "a native." The style of his attire declared that he was completely indifferent to any comments by his townsmen—and such a trait exposed in a New England village revealed more fully than his usurious habits the real callousness of the Britt nature. There was not a man in sight who did not have patches either fore or aft, or both! Mr. Britt wore a light, checked suit with a fitted waist, garishly yellow shoes, ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... inspection of Straudenheim, who became visible at a window on the second floor, convinced me that there was something more precious than liver in the case. He wore a black velvet skull-cap, and looked usurious and rich. A large-lipped, pear-nosed old man, with white hair, and keen eyes, though near-sighted. He was writing at a desk, was Straudenheim, and ever and again left off writing, put his pen in his mouth, and went through actions with his right hand, like a ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... lost in the ocean and ignored: a genius had pity on it; he caused it to be swallowed by an oyster; it became the most beautiful pearl in the Orient, and was the chief ornament in the throne of the Great Mogul. Those who are only compilers, imitators, commentators, splitters of phrases, usurious critics, in short, those on whom a genius has no pity, will always ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... the dead man was glad to leave the district. The villagers celebrated their freedom by eating the "red rice" which is prepared on occasions of festivity. In another village, the guncho who spoke to me of these things said, there were several usurious landlords. "The village headman got angry. He called the landlords to him. He said to them that if they continued to lend at high interest the people would set fire to their houses and he would not proceed against them. So the landlords became affrighted and amended their lives." The rural people ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... reaching to a further, or fulfilling a larger reform. "Everything was pointed against the power of the patricians[7] in order to provide for the comfort of the plebeians." This to a certain degree was true. It was chiefly from the patrician that the bill concerning debts detracted the usurious gains which had been counted upon. It was chiefly from him that the lands indicated in the second bill were to be withdrawn. It was altogether from him that the honors of the consulship were to be derogated. On the other hand the plebeians, ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... balustrade to make sure that it was genuine, stout, and well-founded. Mrs Hamps followed, the fripperies of her elegant bonnet trembling, and her black gown rustling. Edwin smiled at her, and she returned his smile with usurious interest. There was now a mist of grey ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... much. Can it be wondered that both before and after the crash this power of coining money should have put him slightly out of focus with pecuniary matters generally? Mediaeval and other theorisers on usury have been laughed at for their arguments as to the 'unnatural' nature of usurious gain, and its consequent evil. One need not be superstitious more than reason, to scent a certain unnaturalness in the gift of turning paper into gold in this other way also. Every peau de chagrin has a faculty of revenging itself on ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... struggle which ensued is one of the most memorable in Roman history. The haughty oligarchy were obliged gradually to concede rights. These rights the plebs retained. First they gained a law which prevented patricians from taking usurious interest. They secured the appointment of tribunes for their protection. Soon after they had the right of summoning before their own Comitia tributa any one who violated their rights. In 449 they had influence sufficient to establish ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... flitted through Mr. Wilkins's confused brain that he should find it impossible to produce the thousands required without having recourse to the money lenders, who were already making difficulties, and charging him usurious interest for the advances they had lately made; and he unwisely tried to obtain a diminution in the sum he had originally proposed to give Ellinor. "Unwisely," because he might have read Ralph's character ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... may be proper to state the reasons for this policy. Short loans were adopted that we might not bind the future to the payment of usurious rates of interest. We recognized the existence of a great pressing necessity that would tend to depreciate the public credit; and we took care, therefore, not to make these loans for a long period, so as to bind the future to the payment of the rates which ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... him and his friends still more, so that more advantageous salvage terms might be made, hurriedly cast about for other succour, and alighted on one William Wood, printer, who lent money, but whose agreement as a whole was not executed, as it was considered "either usurious or exorbitant" by their solicitors, who characteristically concluded their bill thus:—"Afterwards attending at the office in Wellington Street to see as to making the tender, and to advise you on ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... the clever little dressmaker had a feeling heart for a lady in difficulties, and was in the habit of lending money on good security, and on terms that were almost reasonable as compared with the usurious rates one ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... declares in the tribune that, "commerce is usurious, monarchical and anti-revolutionary."[41136] Considered in itself, it may be defined as an appeal to bad instincts; it seems a corrupting, incivique, anti-fraternal institution, many Jacobins having proposed either to interdict it to private persons and attribute it wholly to the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to hate men of all other religions, especially Christians, and you think you have done a meritorious action when you have deceived us. You do not look upon us as brothers. You are usurious, unmerciful, our enemies, and so I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... help him, and it will be far more proper for him to be obliged to his wife than to strangers. Besides, I should not tax him with usurious interest," she ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... article was often misleading until the manufacturer's side of the question was explained and understood, and so, too, a low price often produced various criticism from those who could not differentiate between just and usurious profit. ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... advantage to the West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation. But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily; sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious; often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge," constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the West for a greater currency supply has already been seen, for it appeared in ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... keep pace with usurious calculations, and trades were concentrated in the capital. Mechanical skill was neglected in ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... us in the guise of an usurious money-lender. It would be hard in the history of usury to come across the well-ascertained details of a more grasping, griping usurer. His practice had been of the kind which we may have been accustomed to hear rebuked with the scathing indignation ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... to the charms of chocolate, established a corner or "Bank" in the commodity. "The Bank," by barter and usurious methods, amassed a great heap of well-thumbed squares, and, when accused of rapacity, invented a scheme for the common good known as "Huntoylette." This was a game of chance similar to roulette, and for a while it completely gulfed the trusting public. In the reaction which ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... to occupy a prominent position in our history. They were Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell,—both names held in general dread and detestation, though no man ventured to speak ill of them openly, since they were as implacable in their animosities, as usurious and griping in their demands; and many an ear had been lost, many a nose slit, many a back scourged at the cart's tail, because the unfortunate owners had stigmatized them according to their deserts. Thus they enjoyed a complete immunity of wrong; ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... grasp, his claim on the future revenues of the oppressed territory was gone. It is a doctrine that raised an outcry in every Continental bourse, and struck terror to every gambling European investor in national loans, floated at usurious profits, to raise funds for unjust wars. But it is right, and one may be proud that the United States stood like a rock, barring any road to peace which led to loading either on the liberated territory ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... the money," said the squire, his lower jaw falling; for he would have preferred the ten dollars' forfeit, and a renewal of the usurious contract. ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... cottagers, whose manners showed that they had not been born to this low estate. Their story had no mystery, and Marian easily collected it from the tenour of their conversation. The young man had been, like Robin, the victim of an usurious abbot, and had been outlawed for debt, and his nut-brown maid had accompanied him to the depths of Sherwood, where they lived an unholy and illegitimate life, killing the king's deer, and never hearing mass. In this state, Robin, then earl of Huntingdon, discovered them in one of his ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... usurious profits on the consumer. I will strew its road with toll-gates, I will stamp its checks and indorse its ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... it would have been impossible for Secretary Cobb to stab the national credit. He would have been dealing constantly with a surplus instead of a deficit, and could not have put the nation to shame by forcing it to hawk its paper in the money markets at the usurious rate of one per cent. a month. One of the wisest financiers in the United States has expressed the belief that two hundred millions of coin, which might easily have been saved to the country by a protective tariff between 1850 and 1860, would have kept ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... well-beloved Ximen," cried one, a wealthy and usurious merchant, with a twinkling and humid eye, and a sleek and unctuous aspect, which did not, however, suffice to disguise something fierce and crafty in his low brow and pinched lips—"trusty and well-beloved Ximen," said this Jew—"truly thou hast served us well, in yielding to thy ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... They overtake us in passing along; And public misfortunes, in all their variety, Need not be told in a holyday song. The troubles of Wall-street, I'm sure that you all meet, And they're not at all sweet—but look at their pranks: Usurious cravings, and discounts and shavings, With maniac ravings ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... used to boast openly that its rewards consisted in the consciousness of work well done. Instead, idleness became the badge of gentility, and trade a slur upon a man's reputation. No city can long survive so listless and languid an ideal. The Archbishop, therefore, denounced this new method of usurious traffic, and hinted further that to it was due the fierce rebellion which had for a while plunged Florence into the horrors of the Jacquerie. Wealth, he taught, should not of itself breed wealth, but only through the toil of honest labour, and that labour should be the labour of oneself, ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... apprehension of some momentous and far-reaching intrigue which he could not even foreshadow. And it was framing itself into being at a time when he had most prayed for their untrammelled freedom, when he had most looked for their ultimate emancipation from the claws of that too usurious past. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... influence of those allurements, which the various places of fashionable resort hold out; and seldom fail to obtain from them securities and obligations for large sums; upon the credit of which they are enabled, perhaps at usurious interest, to borrow money or discount bills, and thus supply their unfortunate customers ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... few miles away, clinging to the hillside, is By, where lived Rosa Bonheur—too busy to care for Barbizon, or if she thought of the "Barbizon School" it was with a fine contempt, which the "School" returned with usurious interest. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... has sustained. Numerous are the cases in which those who have become deeply in debt to them for borrowed money, have procured their banishment, and the confiscation of their property, as the readiest way to cancel their demands; and, as they have ever been addicted to usurious practices, they have, by this means, furnished plausible pretexts to their foes to fleece ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... pence, marked his communications with his agent Meiklewham, who might otherwise have had better pickings out of the estate of St. Ronan's, which is now at nurse, and thriving full fast; especially since some debts, of rather an usurious character, have been paid up by Mr. Touchwood, who contented ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Honorius IV was something more than a stern condemnation of the usurious and extortionate practices of the Jews; it was a complaint of their progress, not merely in inducing Jewish converts to Christianity to apostatize back to Judaism, but of their not unsuccessful endeavors to tempt Christians to Judaism. "These Jews lure them to their synagogues on the Sabbath—are ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... deep, he, Gordon Makimmon, would have no necessity for circuitous dealing; his course would be simple, unmistakable.—He would lend money at, say, three per cent, grant extensions of time wherever necessary, and knock the bottom out of the storekeepers' usurious monopoly, drag the farms out ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... person. But there is not the same unanimity as to his promise to pay interest: on the contrary, the very exaction of interest will be regarded by many in the same light in which the English law considers usurious interest, as tainting the whole transaction. But in the modern mind, principal, and interest within a limited rate, have so grown together, that we hardly understand how it can ever have been pronounced unworthy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... sight the establishment of an agricultural bank sounded propitious as a step in the right direction, but, according to the conditions of all loans, it became usurious, and saddled the unfortunate farmers after a few bad seasons with debts that could never be paid off. If X borrowed 1000 pounds, he received only 880 pounds, as the year's interest was deducted in advance, but he was afterwards charged compound interest at 12 per cent. upon the whole 1000 pounds. ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... was so iniquitously wrung from the ruin of the Flanagans. It would be wrong to say that he felt in any degree embarrassed on looking into the face of one whom he had so oppressively injured. The recovery of his usurious debts, no matter how merciless the process, he considered only as an act of justice to himself, for his conscience having long ago outgrown the perception of his own inhumanity, now only felt compunction when death or the occasional insolvency of ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... slaves in North Borneo. For a debt of three pikuls—$60 to $75—a man might be enslaved if his friends could not raise the requisite sum, and he would continue to be a slave until the debt was paid, but, as a most usurious interest was charged, it was almost always a hopeless ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... hundred thousand dollars of dowry. Half of this you are to employ in making partisans in the Senate, and in what you are pleased to call your army. This sum you will not lose: it will be repaid to you, and with usurious interest; or if it never should, you still make a good thing of it. The end you will keep in view, is to detach the Senate of Sonora from the Federal alliance. You will find no lack of reasons for this policy. For instance, your State has ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... manufactures, buildings, and agriculture. The failure of Mr. Duer, the chief of that description of people, has already produced some other bankruptcies, and more are apprehended. He had obtained money from great numbers of small tradesmen and farmers, tempting them by usurious interest, which has made the distress very extensive. Congress will adjourn within a fortnight. The President negatived their representation bill, as framed on principles contrary to the constitution. I suppose another will be passed, allowing simply a representative ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... pillar of some church until his avarice grew so upon him that he could no longer bring himself to subscribe. My father learned that he was using his position in our church to lend money to other members at usurious interest, and to collect it under threats of exposure. My father showed him up, and Deaves was put out of the church. He set about a cold and patient scheme of revenge, but we didn't learn this until the crash came a couple ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... millions of you, a sober and industrious race. Cortez found you so, and you astounded him with your civilization. But the conditions that followed have enslaved you. Enslaved, I repeat, for you are bound by debt. Your hacendado master contrives that you cannot pay even his usurious interest. The food you eat, you must buy from him, at his prices, of the quality he prescribes. And if your debt be not sufficient, that is, if there seems a chance of your paying it off, then you must ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and entreated, almost forced him to take it at first at a very low rate of interest. For a few weeks he had let it lie idle; then he had appropriated it, and step by step his creditor had increased his demands up to a bill of exchange and a usurious rate of interest. And now the vagabond grew insolent. Was he like the rat who foresees the sinking of the ship, and tries to escape from it? The baron laughed so as to make Lenore shudder; why, he was not the man to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... private individuals, but which are entirely unproductive, and even injurious, so far as mankind is concerned; for the reason that they take from others as much as, or even more than they procure to those engaged in them. Here belong, besides formal crimes against property, games of chance,(332) usurious speculations ( 113) and measures taken to entice customers away from other competitors. Again, scientific experiments, means of communication etc., may be entirely unproductive in the individual economy of the undertaker, and yet be of more profit to mankind in general, than ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... rigidly enforced the marketing of clean and perfect fruit, and a wholesome quality of all other provisions. This was at first difficult to do, as in those ancient days, (I refer to a very remote period of our history) in order to make usurious profit, dealers adulterated all kinds of food; often with poisonous substances. When every state took charge of its markets and provided free schools for cooking, progress took a rapid advance. Do you wonder at it? Reflect then. How could I force my mind into ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... lending money to pay for labor and thus secure a larger crop, which has only recently been assumed by the Government in its establishment of farm loan banks, had been performed by private capitalists who asked usurious rates of interest. The farmers' protests against these rates had been loud; and now, when they found themselves unable to get loans at any rate whatever, their complaints naturally increased. Looking around for one cause to which to attribute all their ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... brother and sister, they were in mourning for their father, from whom they inherited the house which had been as good as stolen from Pierrette's grandmother, also certain lands bought by their father, and certain moneys acquired by usurious loans and mortgages to the peasantry, whose bits of ground the old drunkard expected to possess. The yearly taking of stock was just over. The price of the "Family Sister" had, at last, been paid in full. The Rogrons ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... have known people untrammelled in the ways of business, but with so intense an apprehension of their own interest, that they would grasp at the slightest possibility of gain as a certainty, and were led into as many mistakes by an overgriping, usurious disposition as they could have been by the most thoughtless extravagance.—We hear a great outcry about the want of judgment in men of genius. It is not a want of judgment, but an excess of other things. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... attention. Thus Vanguardia [57] a bitter anti-American sheet, arraigns its wealthy fellow-countrymen for lack of initiative and fondness of routine. It accuses them of a willingness to invest in city property, to deposit money in banks, "to make loans at usurious rates, in which they take advantage of the urgent and pressing necessities of their countrymen," but of unwillingness "to engage in agriculture, marine or industrial enterprise"; and says they are "generally lacking in the spirit of progression." According to another native newspaper, the vice of ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... conviction is expressed in the condemnation of usurious interest and of rack-rent? ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch |
