"What news? what news? your tidings tell,

Tell me you must and shall

Say why bareheaded you are come,
Or why you come at all?"

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit,
And loved a timely joke;
And thus unto the calender,

In merry guise, he spoke :

"I came because your horse could come;
And, if I well forebode,

My hat and wig will soon be here, -
They are upon the road."

The calender, right glad to find
His friend in merry pin,

Returned him not a single word,

But to the house went in;

Whence straight he came with hat and wig

A wig that flowed behind,

A hat not much the worse for wear,

Each comely in its kind.

He held them up, and in his turn,
Thus showed his ready wit:-
"My head is twice as big as yours,
They therefore needs must fit.

"But let me scrape the dirt away
That hangs upon your face;
And stop and eat, for well you may
Be in a hungry case."

Said John," It is my wedding day,
And all the world would stare,
If wife should dine at Edmonton,
And I should dine at Ware."

So turning to his horse, he said,

"I am in haste to dine;

'Twas for your pleasure you came here,

You shall go back for mine."

Ah! luckless speech, and bootless boast,
For which he paid full dear:

For while he spake, a braying ass

Did sing most loud and clear;

Whereat his horse did snort, as he
Had heard a lion roar,

And galloped off with all his might,
As he had done before.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig:
He lost them sooner than at first,
For why? they were too big.

Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down

Into the country far away,

She pulled out half a crown;

And thus unto the youth she said,

That drove them to the Bell,

"This shall be yours, when you bring back

My husband safe and well."

The youth did ride, and soon did meet
John coming back amain;

Whom in a trice he tried to stop
By catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away

Went postboy at his heels,

The postboy's horse right glad to miss.
The lumbering of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,

Thus seeing Gilpin fly,

With postboy scampering in the rear,

They raised the hue and cry:

"Stop thief! stop thief!-a highwayman!"

Not one of them was mute;

And all and each that passed that way

Did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike gates again

Flew open in short space;
The tollmen thinking as before,
That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too,

For he got first to town;

Nor stopped till where he had got up

He did again get down.

Now let us sing Long live the King,

And Gilpin, long live he;

And when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!

MISCHIEFS OF THE ANTI-USURIOUS LAWS.

BY JEREMY BENTHAM.

(From the "Defence of Usury.")

[JEREMY BENTHAM, a great English jurist and social philosopher, was born at London in 1748; graduated from Queen's College, Oxford; was called to the bar, but gave up practice for literature, inheriting a fortune in 1792 which enabled him to work independently. His working out of utilitarianism has had enormous influence on all later speculation and much practical legislation. He wrote, among other things, "Fragment on Government" (1776), "Defence of Usury" (1786), "Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation " (1789), "Rationale of Judicial Evidence" (1827), "The Constitutional Code" (1830).]

IN THE preceding letters, I have examined all the modes I can think of, in which the restraints imposed by the laws against usury can have been fancied to be of service.

I hope it appears by this time, that there are no ways in which those laws can do any good. But there are several, in which they cannot but do mischief.

The first I shall mention, is that of precluding so many people altogether from the getting the money they stand in need of, to answer their respective exigencies. Think what a distress it would produce, were the liberty of borrowing denied to everybody; denied to those who have such security to offer,

as renders the rate of interest they have to offer a sufficient inducement, for a man who has money, to trust them with it. Just that same sort of distress is produced, by denying that liberty to so many people whose security, though if they were permitted to add something to that rate it would be sufficient, is rendered insufficient by their being denied that liberty. Why the misfortune of not being possessed of that arbitrarily exacted degree of security, should be made a ground for subjecting a man to a hardship which is not imposed on those who are free from that misfortune, is more than I can see. To discriminate the former class from the latter, I can see but this one circumstance, viz. that their necessity is greater. This it is by the very supposition: for were it not, they could not be, what they are supposed to be, willing to give more to be relieved from it. In this point of view, then, the sole tendency of the law is, to heap distress upon distress.

A second mischief is, that of rendering the terms so much the worse, to a multitude of those whose circumstances exempt them from being precluded altogether from getting the money they have occasion for. In this case, the mischief, though necessarily less intense than in the other, is much more palpable and conspicuous. Those who cannot borrow may get what they want, so long as they have anything to sell. But while, out of loving-kindness or whatsoever other motive, the law precludes a man from borrowing upon terms which it deems too disadvantageous, it does not preclude him from selling upon any terms, howsoever disadvantageous. Everybody

knows that forced sales are attended with a loss: and to this loss, what would be deemed a most extravagant interest bears in general no proportion. When a man's movables are taken in execution, they are, I believe, pretty well sold if, after all expenses paid, the produce amounts to two thirds of what it would cost to replace them. In this way the providence and loving-kindness of the law costs him 33 per cent. and no more, supposing, what is seldom the case, that no more of the effects are taken than what is barely necessary to make up the money due. If, in her negligence and weakness, she were to suffer him to offer 11 per cent. per annum for forbearance, it would be three years before he paid what he is charged with, in the first instance, by her wisdom.

Such being the kindness done by the law to the owner of movables, let us see how it fares with him who has an interest in

immovables. Before the late war, thirty years' purchase for land might be reckoned, I think it is pretty well agreed, a medium price. During the distress produced by the war, lands which it was necessary should be sold were sold at twenty, eighteen, nay, I believe, in some instances, even so low as fifteen years' purchase. If I do not misrecollect, I remember instances of land put up to public auction, for which nobody bid so high as fifteen. In many instances, villas which had been bought before the war, or at the beginning of it, and in the interval had been improved rather than impaired, sold for less than half, or even the quarter, of what they had been bought for. I dare not here for my part pretend to be exact: but on this passage, were it worth their notice, Mr. Skinner, or Mr. Christie, could furnish very instructive notes. Twenty years' purchase, instead of thirty, I may be allowed to take, at least for illustration. An estate then of 1007. a year, clear of taxes, was devised to a man, charged, suppose with 15007., with interest till the money should be paid. Five per cent. interest, the utmost which could be accepted from the owner, did not answer the incumbrancer's purpose: he chose to have the money. But 6 per cent. perhaps would have answered his purpose; if not, most certainly it would have answered the purpose of somebody else: for multitudes there all along were, whose purposes were answered by 5 per cent. The war lasted, I think, seven years: the depreciation of the value of land did not take place immediately: but as, on the other hand, neither did it immediately recover its former price upon the peace, if indeed it has even yet recovered it, we may put seven years for the time during which it would be more advantageous to pay this extraordinary rate of interest than to sell the land, and during which, accordingly, this extraordinary rate of interest would have had to run. One per cent. for seven years is not quite of equal worth to 6 per cent. the first year; say, however, that it is. The estate, which before the war was worth thirty years' purchase, that is 30007., and which the devisor had given to the devisee for that value, being put up to sale, fetched but twenty years' purchase, 20007. At the end of that period it would have fetched its original value, 30007. Compare, then, the situation of the devisee at the seven years' end, under the law, with what it would have been without the law. In the former case, the land selling for twenty years' purchase, i.e. 2000l., what he would have, after paying the 1500l., is 5007.; which, with the interest of that sum at 5 per cent.