Old Laws Concerning Debt.
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OLD LAWS CONCERNING DEBT. By Geokge H. Westley. THE problem of poor debtor is one slave dealers and sent across the seas, while which has exercised the minds of others only preserved their freedom by bar legislators for many centuries, and it is in tering that of their children. teresting to note the ways in which the In ancient Greece, the law at one time various nations have tried to solve it, par gave no assistance to creditors in recovering ticularly under the earlier conditions of debts; those who sold had to choose be civilization. tween transactions for cash and upon honor. In ancient Rome, to begin with, a debtor Theophrastus mentions a law against credit, who refused or neglected to pay his creditor as follows : the buyer was to give earnest to was summoned to appear in court, when, if the seller, and a piece of money to three neighbors, who were to remember and bear he failed to justify his conduct, he was en joined to satisfy the plaintiff within a period witness to the bargain. The earnest was of thirty days. At the expiration of that forfeited unless the whole of the price was time, the creditor was empowered to lay paid the same day; while if the seller did hands upon him and take him by main not fill his agreement, he was liable to a fine force, if necessary, before a judge. If he equal to the price agreed upon. then failed either to produce the money or According to Herodotus, the ancient to find sureties for its payment, he was de Egyptians entertained peculiar notions on livered over to his creditor, who kept him the subject of loans. Every man who had in chains for sixty days, exposing him to occasion to borrow money was required to the public gaze on three successive market pledge the embalmed body of his father; days. When that term had also expired, and until this was redeemed he was inca the creditor was entitled to seize upon the pacitated from performing the funeral rites property of his debtor up to the full amount of any of his own children; and in the event of his claim; and if it proved insufficient he of his death, his body was denied burial. could then either sell his victim into slavery This singular custom must have proved or put him to death. If there were several particularly inconvenient to those whose creditors, the letter of the law permitted fathers were still alive; but possibly they them to cut their debtor to pieces, sharing contrived to elude the letter of the law by his body in proportion to their claims. There giving a post obit bond to surrender the do not appear to have been any public pris body of their respected parent as soon as it ons for debtors at Rome, and each creditor, should be in a fitting condition to be re consequently, was the jailer of his own ceived in pawn. debtor. It was an ancient Hindoo law that, if a Previous to the time of Solon, the Athe debtor was unable to find either money or nians were also very severe on debtors. security, he was liable to be sold into bond Those who were unable to meet their ob age, together with his wife and children, and ligations became the bondsmen of their even his grandchildren if they were living creditors, together with their unmarried under the same roof with himself. He could daughters, their sisters, and their sons under demand, however, that a fair valuation be age. In many cases debtors were not only placed upon himself and family, at which deprived of their liberty, but sold to foreign they should be redeemable by his relatives.
