A USURER FOILED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5490, 21 June 1879, Page 7

A USURER FOILED.

A curious case o£ usury has just been decided in Berlin. A person, who seems to make his livelihood by making small money advances to needy teachers and petty officials, was applied to by one of the latter for a loan, and advanced him the sum of 45 marks for a month. The borrower was iu extreme need, owing to a succession of illnesses iu his family, and only succeeded in getting the above mentioned sum on engaging to pay six marks as the month's interest and 20 marks aa a hue for every day the money remaiued unpaid after the expiry of the month. A month elapsed ; lhe borrower waß only able to pay back the loan 12 day 3 after the exirp of the specified time, and this exhausted all the money in his possession. The money-lender thereupon prosecuted him for the non-fulfilment of his engagement, and the municipal court decided in favour of the plaintiff, while blaming the transaction, and though the interest would have amounted to no leas than 14,000 per cent. On appeal, however, to the highest court-, the decision was reversed on the following grounds :—A dohtor who entered into an agreement on such terms as those in question was of necessity, at the moment of doing so, either not in a state of free will or in the most abject distress. To take advantage of this condition of a borrower was obviously an act of the grossest immorality. The engagement to pay 20 marks a-day as a tine, fell to the giount because uncontrollable circumstances had prevented its fulfilment. The court accordingly dismissed the caae with costs.