Note 192-5 — Chapter IV

Usurae palliatae, interest taken out of the capital, or stem-interest, called also money-usury in contradistinction to patent interest-usury. To this category belong the written acknowledgments of indebtedness to a larger amount than that actually received; acknowledging it in a higher kind of money than that in which the loan was made; the compulsory taking by the debtor of commodities at a disproportionately high price, in the place of money, or at a disproportionately low one, by the creditor. See the enumeration of such things in the police regulations of the empire, 1530, art. 26, and 1548, art. 17. Thus, in Paris, jewels are "sold" to students hard-pressed for money, which immediately find their way to the monts de piété, and have to be paid for some time after to the usurious "seller," at a most exorbitant price. The person who loans $100 at 6 per cent., and retains the interest for the next following year from the date of the loan, takes in reality nearly 6.4 per cent. Fraudulent accessory expenses of all kinds, faux frais, expenses of registration, for prolongation, and extinguishment, etc. Here belong, also, the provisions introduced into contracts to make redemption more difficult, the fixing of terms of payment in such a manner that the debtor is almost forced to let them slip by—called "usury in the conditions" in Austria. Remarkable instances from the 16th century in Vasco, Usura libera, § 57 ff. Recently, Braun und Wirth, Die Zinswuchergesetze, 1856, 190 ff. In view of the manifold business transactions behind which the interest-usurer may take refuge, the complete prevention of the latter would break the legs of commerce (loc. cit., 145 ff.).