CHAPTER XV 

 SERVIA 



THE conditions from which organized effort 

 has sought to rescue the agriculturists of 

 Servia were at one time unspeakably bad. 

 Crippled by taxation, and his normal condition 

 of impoverishment made worse by occasional 

 crop failures, the Servian farmer in his struggle 

 for existence had two natural enemies who 

 profited by his misfortunes, and preyed upon 

 him for all that he was worth. The one was the 

 shopkeeper in the towns, the other was the inn- 

 keeper in the villages. 



It was to the shopkeeper he went when he 

 was obliged to borrow money for his farming 

 operations. The ordinary banks were far beyond 

 the reach of modest cultivators who had no 

 adequate security to offer, and a tradesman was 

 the only alternative. It was convenient to go 

 to him, and the shopkeeper himself was ready 

 enough to lend. The drawback to the arrange- 

 ment was that the shopkeeper's recognized rate 



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