Pagina 243 de 2651

and the succeeding crop is mortgaged for the payment. As the

profits which can afford such an interest must eat up almost the

whole rent of the landlord, so such enormous usury must in its

turn eat up the greater part of those profits. Before the fall of

the Roman republic, a usury of the same kind seems to have been

common in the provinces, under the ruinous administration of

their proconsuls. The virtuous Brutus lent money in Cyprus at

eight-and-forty per cent. as we learn from the letters of Cicero.