MONEY LENDERS. 
157 
prospect of repayment for the mere gratification of 
having it in their power to cast the debtor into prison, 
and to pursue him with cold unsparing vengeance 
during the rest of his days, unless he should escape 
the tyranny by outliving the tyrant ; and even then 
it frequently happens that the obligation of continu- 
ing the persecution is entailed with the gold of the 
persecutor. 
These money-lenders are generally influenced by 
no feelings of honour. In all their dealings it is 
their aim to overreach those who may require pecu- 
niary aid, — and they are generally successful. The 
obligations of honesty are not recognised ; and even 
should detection ensue, it would not in the slightest 
degree abate the influence which money in Hindos- 
tan, perhaps above all other places in the world, con- 
fers upon its possessor: nor would the usurer con- 
sider himself morally degraded in lying under the im- 
putation of fraud, since this is held to be an allowable 
stroke of policy, though the direct violation of a moral 
law. 
The lies to which persons of this class descend, 
and indeed all native retail traders in India, when 
engaged in dealings to which they only look for 
exorbitant profit, would far transcend in depth of 
hue and in plausible ingenuity those resorted to by 
the ever-notorious chafferers of Rosemary-lane and 
similar localities in London. Their success in busi- 
ness is always in proportion to their craft, which is 
generally consummate ; and so bland are their manners, 
until the victim is within their power, that you are 
almost invariably disarmed by the mild, courteous, and 
p 
