The Iola register., 1875-02-20
OUR LAWMAKERS.

EDITOR REGISTER We have learned
by many years of experience. to look ior
but little from a Kansas Legislature.
We looked for nothing from the extra
session" except expense, and that was
all we got. They all chew the same
stick Of gum, and of course it will never
get fine and so they continue to che W
and never think that the way to get rid
of it is to spit it out.
As usual the question Of "usury" must
be attended to and bill is introduced
providing that "any person who shall
charge more interest than II per cent.
per annum either by way of discount,
commissions, or other subterfuges, shall
forfeit the whole amount of interest so
charged" q believe it also provides that
he shah be arrested and incarcerated in
post office or some other place but that
does not make the bill any more ridicu-
lous.) The object Of the bill is to pre-
vent high rates of interest from being
charged by money lenders, and high
commission by loan agents.
If the bill will not accomplish that
object, then it ought not to become a
law. Let US see what effect it will have.
There are men in New York who have
money to loan at 10 per cent. per
annum, and they do business through
the banking house of Austin Corbin.
Messrs. Murray & Richards are the
agents of Austin Corbin with headquar-
tiers at lola. Now su,pose John Smith
wishes to borrow 81 ,01o. He hunts the
country over but can iind no one with
money to loan at 10 or l2 per cent. He
applies to Murray & Richards who in
form him that they can negotiate loan
for him; that capitalists in New York
will loan him the money and only charge
him 10 per cent. per aanum. This looks
moderate, so he asks them what they
will charge for their services and is in
formed that the charge will be 5000 !;
that they have to pay Mr.. Corbin out of
that amount for attending to the matter
in New York. The papers are drawn up
and sent to New York and the money
cones back and is paid over to the hor-
rover who then pays the attorneys for
their services.
Now this is one of the very cases that
this proposed law is intended to prevent,
and is one of the very ones it will not
affect, because the man who loans the
money only receives ten per cent. This
law or no other one that the legislature
can pass will regulate the disposition
that man makes of his money after one
has borrowed it. He can pay to it to
IN attorney for services not rendered or
he can bny dog with it. The interest
on money will always be regulated by
that ineffable law of trade, supply and
in spite of a Kansas Legislature
spending thousand dollars day of the
peoples money trying to prevent it.
The persistence OF our law makers in
always trying the wrong way to do any
thing, is well illustrated by the story, of
a hunter in the wilds of Michigan who
had struck tie trail of rabbit and fol-
lowed it in the snow until he suddenly
found he was. lost. Frightened out Of
his senses he started to run through the
woods, first one way then another,
around and around he went until at last
tired out, his clothes torn, his eyes
bloodshot, and his tongue hanging out
he sat down in despair where he was
found by trapper, to whom, in the
greatest agony he related his troubles.
Why, said the trapper, did you not take
the back track? That, said the hunter,
is Just what have been hunting for all
day and could not find it. Year after
year the great hunters of Kansas assem-
bic at Topeka and get on the track of
that SAME rabbit and invariably fetch up
in about the same style.
b Cannot soine one ''heaq Fem off," and
turn them around and show them their
back track k?s1 :, ALEXANDER,