THE great Napoleon said, after studying a set of compound interest tables: “There is one thing to my mind more wonderful than all the rest, and that is, that the deadly fact buried in these tables has not before this devoured the whole world.” The ethical sense of mankind saw at an early day the wrong of usury. The Mosaic law was very explicit on the subject. Cicero mentions that Cato, being asked what he thought of usury, made no other answer to the question than by asking the person who spoke to him what he thought of murder. The Christian Church, in its early days and until the end of the Middle Ages, utterly forbade the exaction of interest. In the reign of Edward VI. a prohibitory act was passed, for the stated reason that the charging of interest was “a vice most odious and detestable and contrary to the word of God.” It was not until the time of the Reformation that this interpretation of the divine law was ever questioned. Calvin was one of the first to contend that the sentiment against exacting interest arose from a mistaken view of the Mosaic law. A series of enactments, known as the Usury Laws, restricted the maximum rate to be charged in England. By Act 21 James I. this rate was fixed at 8 per cent. During the Commonwealth this rate was reduced to 6 per cent., and by Act 12 Anne to 5 per cent., at which rate it stood until 1839. In the United States the legal rate of interest varies, nearly all the States having passed statutes fixing a maximum rate. “Usury bringeth the treasures of a realm or state into a few hands; for the usurer being at certainties, and others at uncertainties, at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box; and ever a state flourisheth when wealth is more equally spread.” This quotation is from the essay “Of Usury,” by that wisest of philosophers, Francis Bacon. The reader must bear in mind that while nowadays the term “usury” is applied generally only to excessive interest, in Bacon’s time the word was used for any rate of premium or interest for the use of money. The word _usance_, now obsolete in that sense, conveyed the same meaning, and is used in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” The provocation which Antonio first gave Shylock was that— “He lends out money gratis and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice.” All are familiar with the conditions which Shylock exacted of Antonio: _Shylock._ This kindness will I show. Go with me to a notary, seal me there Your single bond; and, in a merry sport, If you repay me not on such a day, In such a place, such sum or sums as are Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit Be nominated for an equal pound Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken In what part of your body pleaseth me. _Antonio._ Content i’ faith: I’ll seal to such a bond And say there is much kindness in the Jew.