really made against them, and that is why it was so easy to pass
them--they based it, doubtless, on the references to usury in the
Bible. Thus they got the notion that it was wrong to charge interest,
or at least extortionate interest; more than a certain definite per
cent.; and this is the origin of all our interest and usury statutes
to-day. Although most economists will tell you that it is ridiculous
to have any limit on the rate of interest, that the loan of money
may well be worth only four per cent. to one man and twenty-five to
another, and that the best way for everybody would be to leave it
alone; nevertheless, nearly all our States have usury laws. We shall
discuss that later; but here is the first statute on the subject, and
it really arose because of the feeling against the Jews. To show how
strong that prejudice was, there was another statute passed in the
interest of liberality to protect the Jews--a statute which provided
liberally that you must not take from a Jew "more than one-half his
substance." And a very early commentator tells us of a Jew who fell
into a privy on a Friday, but refused to be helped out on Saturday
because it was his Sunday; and on Sunday he besought the Earl of
Gloucester to pull him out, but the Earl of Gloucester refused because
it was his Sunday; so the Jew remained there until Monday morning,
when he was found dead. There is no prejudice against Hebrews to-day
anywhere in Europe stronger than existed even in England for the first
three or four centuries after the Norman Conquest; and had it not been
for the protection given them by the crown, probably they would have
been exterminated or starved out, and in 1289 they were all banished
to the number of 16,160, and their movables seized.

In 1264 citizens of towns were first represented in the Parliament (in
the Great Council, that is, for the word parliament is not yet used),
originally only composed of the great barons, who were the only