Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1895-09-07
USURIOUS DESPOTIsM.
Shylock Me ethods Employed by
Berlin Money Lenders.
Thousands of Prussinns Driven TO Ruin
or Exile Every Ycar-Mnrry-
ing for Money tho
Solo Remedy.

All Berlin slghs under the despotism
of-usury. The government, or at
least the pillars of the government,
sigh and suffer the most. For the past
six months one huge trial for usury has
followed another, and the end is not
vet In one of these trials last fall,
saws the San Francisco Argonuut, there
were no less than one hundred and
twenty-seven defendants, and the mum.
Der of witnesses amounted to nearly
four hundred. A number OF the worst
usurers have been found guilty and
sentenced to terms of imprisonment
ranging from six months upward to
seven years, besides heavy fines in
money. Quite number of the shrewd-
est and most dangerous had to be ac'
quilted for lack of proof. The young
capital of the new German empire will
remain the most usnry-ridden city in
the world, where the vampireism of
legion of Shyloclis steadily sucks the
life-blood of the higher as well as lower
classes, and drives annually hundreds
and thousands into ruin or into exile.
The cause is expressed by the un-
translatable word "standerstruecksich-
teu," by which is meant the thou
sand and one considerations which
Germans deem due to their rank or
station in life. Prussia is q poor coun-
try, even to-day, after amalgamating
into its domain large districts of more
fertile and wealthier regions, such as
Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, districts in Han
over and by the Rhine. The Prussian
nobility is the poorest of any civilized
country, with the single exception OF
Italian. But the Prussian nobility,
nevertheless, is as proud as the
Spanish, vastly prouder than the British.
Their poverty now and their claims to
consideration, their station In life,
their prominent position In the state
lead to nevcr-ceasing conflict Their
peculiar code of honor forbids them to
engage in money-making pursuits,
least of all in trade or commerce, and
nothing is left them to live in accord
ance with the cast-iron notions of their
professional soldiers, to enter the gov
erment employ, or else to till the mea-
ger paternal acres.
The latter occupation-which used to
furnish TO brothers, cousins and sons of
such agricultural noblemen the secret
wherewithal to live standesgesmaes Il.
e., according to their rank in Berlin or
elsewhere-is becoming less and less
profitable, owing to cheap American
and East Indian wheat, cheap Russian
ry e, and cheap Australian meat. And
the pay of Prussian army officers or
government employees is still 80 wholly
inadequate that 1t does not suffice even
the most modest expectations up to the
age of forty or so.
A money marriage" Is the sole rem
edy left them to adjust their affairs
under normal conditions; but money
marriages" too, are becoming less and
less frequent, since the number of
claimants to each wealthy girls hand
is yearly becoming larger. The hunt
for an American heiress or for some
other exotic goldfish" is hence men
toned in the lexicon of these unen-
viable young men as the dernier
resort. This rapid pen picture of the
actual conditions confronting nine
tenths of the young Prussian mobiles on
entering life Is by no means complete.
But it will serve to show why the
usurcr in Berlin has become power
of the first magnitude.
Each year scores of cases occur in
Berlin of young hopefuls ending their
brief butterfly existence by we'll
directed bullet; of despairing fathers
quitting the service of that state to
which they had devoted the best years
of their life at personal and financial
sacrifices; of middle-aged men disappear
ing (and often turning up again in
miserable guise in some transatlantic
country from their old-time haunts,
and all this because the usurer at last
has drawn the net close about them.
And the number of poor, dowerless
girls, of sisters and brides of these
snme young men, girls who of their
own free choice abandon every hope
of wifehood and motherhood simply to
enable their lords of the other sex,
their brothers in most cases, to cut n
figure for time, to live standesge-
macs, is fairly innumerable. These
poor girls, silent, accomplishing vic
tins of hoary prejudice, are the real
heroines in these tragedies of life.
That is why Berlin is honeycombed
with usury, and that is why usury is n
regular profession-or, rather, a fine
urt.
Combipation sleeper and 6ecIiDint
Chair Car Between Ciuctunau
| and LA Acll AOnxitIe.