His one worldly care was to raise ready money; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. And how he raised it: From usurious insatiable Jews; every fresh Jew sticking on him like a fresh horseleech, sucking his and our life out; crying continually, Give, Give! Take one example instead of scores. Our _Camera_ having fallen into ruin, William the Sacristan received charge to repair it; strict charge, but no money; Abbot Hugo would, and indeed could, give him no fraction of money. The _Camera_ in ruins, and Hugo penniless and inaccessible, Willelmus Sacrista borrowed Forty Mares (some Seven-and-twenty Pounds) of Benedict the Jew, and patched up our Camera again. But the means of repaying him? There were no means. Hardly could _Sacrista, Cellerarius, or any public officer, get ends to meet, on the indispensablest scale, with their shrunk allowances: ready money had vanished. Benedict's Twenty-seven pounds grew rapidly at compound-interest; and at length, when it had amounted to One hundred pounds, he, on a day of settlement, presents the account to Hugo himself. Hugo already owed him another One hundred of his own; and so here it has become Two hundred! Hugo, in a fine frenzy, threatens to depose the Sacristan, to do this and do that; but, in the mean while, How to quiet your insatiable Jew? Hugo, for this couple of hundreds, grants the Jew his bond for Four hundred payable at the end of four years. At the end of four years there is, of course, still no money; and the Jew now gets a bond for Eight hundred and eighty pounds, to be paid by installments, Four-score pounds every year. Here was a way of doing business! Neither yet is this insatiable Jew satisfied or settled with: he had papers against us of 'small debts fourteen years old;' his modest claim amounts finally to 'Twelve hundred pounds besides interest;'--and one hopes he never got satisfied in this world; one almost hopes he was one of those beleaguered Jews who hanged themselves in York Castle shortly afterwards, and had his usances and quittances and horseleech papers summarily set fire to! For approximate justice will strive to accomplish itself; if not in one way, then in another. Jews, and also Christians and Heathens, who accumulate in this manner, though furnished with never so many parchments, do, at times, 'get their grinder-teeth successively pulled out of their head, each day a new grinder, till they consent to disgorge again. A sad fact,--worth reflecting on.