Then again, as to the opprobrious name. No appellation or particular stigma of disrepute affixes to a man who being the owner of a house, gets as high a rent for it as he can. Indeed this is the common practice with such persons, and nobody is ashamed to do so, or professes to do otherwise. Now, why a man who possesses money, and takes as much as he can get for it, say 8, 10 or 12 per cent. should be loaded with vile epithets, any more than if he had bought a house with it, and then made the same profit from renting the house, is more than I can see. Another point, in which the good policy of the existing restrictive laws upon this subject, seems doubtful, is that they operate in only one direction. If it is wrong, and worthy of punishment, to _take_ more than the fixed maximum of interest for the use of money, why not make it a penal offence to _offer less_ than that amount, as well as to accept more? There are divers reasons given by the advocates of the laws restricting the rates of Interest why they are beneficial and ought to be enforced. Among these are: that they _prevent_ prodigality, and protect the poor and simple from extortion and imposition. As to preventing prodigality: does not every one know that so long as a person has money, or property of any sort, with which it is possible for him to display prodigality, no Usury laws will stop him from expending it; and, that after his property is gone and he has no more to expend, none are more ready to _promise_ the largest Interest, providing he can thereby obtain additional money to spend? for what he gets is clear gain, he having nothing to lose. This, it would seem is a hopeless class, for whose protection or advantage to legislate. Besides prodigals, there are three other classes, to whose benefit such restrictive laws are supposed by their authors to insure. They are the indigent, the rashly enterprising, and the simple. That is to say, those whose pecuniary necessities are so pressing, as to render them willing to pay an Interest, above the ordinary rate, rather than not to have the money; those who from rashness, may be disposed to venture upon the giving such a rate without duly considering the consequence; and those whose natural carelessness combined with ignorance would lead them to acquiesce in it. Let us look at the conditions of these classes a few moments. Here is a small trader we will say, whose stock in trade consists of only a small amount of property, combined with an, as yet, perfectly untarnished reputation for punctuality in payments. This last, all who know anything of business, will at once admit to be the principal, and most important item of his stock. For with such a character, no merchant will refuse to credit him for articles needful to carry on his business; and thus all goes well with him.