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Nevertheless, those in whom the gift of penurious- 

 ness is very highly developed, and they are fairly 

 numerous, do succeed in their effort not only to live, 

 but to save money, which they lend on mortgage at 

 usurious interest to their struggling neighbours : and 

 they prove the most inexorable of creditors. 



Mill, lauding the peasant proprietary system of 

 France, mentions as one of its prominent features 

 deserving commendation, that under it the sale of land 

 is as free as it is in this country, and that more land 

 changes hands in France yearly than in England, not 

 perceiving that his affirmation is substantially that 

 very many more proprietors are ruined in France than 

 in England, and compelled to part with their properties. 

 For no French peasant will part from his land until 

 he is driven to do so by stress of circumstances ; while, 

 owing to the smallness of their properties, many 

 French proprietors must be ruined to sell as much 

 land as is comprised in the average estate of a single 

 English landlord. To this result the French law that 

 compels an equal division of the property of a parent 

 among the children is largely responsible. A father 

 whose estate, augmented by his wife's, amounts 

 to eight acres, dies and leaves three children. As 

 the property can support no more than a single 

 family, one of the children, generally the eldest, 

 is selected to farm the whole, purchasing from 

 the other two their inheritances, and borrowing the 

 necessary money to do so. 



In this way he hangs a millstone of debt round his 



