ey at fixed rates of interest. They are still under that
interdiction, but since our commercial code practically prevents usury
altogether, and our law will not recognize contracts for interest upon
private accommodation loans to unprosperous borrowers," (he is speaking
of Utopia), "it is now scarcely necessary. The idea of a man growing
richer by mere inaction and at the expense of an impoverished debtor is
profoundly distasteful to Utopian ideas, and our State insists pretty
effectually now upon the participation of the lender in the borrower's
risks. This, however, is only one part of a series of limitations of
the same character. It is felt that to buy simply in order to sell again
brings out many unsocial human qualities; it makes a man seek to enhance
profits and falsify values, and so the Samurai are forbidden to buy or
sell on their own account or for any employer save the State, unless by
some process of manufacture they change the nature of the commodity (a
mere change in bulk or packing does not suffice), and they are forbidden
salesmanship and all its arts. Nor may the Samurai do personal services,
except in the matter of medicine or surgery; they may not be barbers,
for example, nor inn waiters nor boot cleaners, men do such services for
themselves. Nor may a man under the Rule be any man's servant, pledged
to do whatever he is told. He may neither be a servant nor keep one;
he must shave and dress and serve himself, carry his own food from the
helper's place, redd his sleeping room and leave it clean..."
Finally came the things they had to do. Their Rule contained:--
"many precise directions regarding his health, and rules that would aim
at once at health and that constant exercise or will that makes life
good. Save in specified exceptional circumstances, the Samurai must
bathe in cold water and the men shave every day; they have the precisest
directions in such matters; the body must be in health, the skin and
nerves and muscles in perfect tone, or the Samurai must go to the
doctors of the order and give implicit obedience to the regimen
prescribed. They must sleep alone at least four nights in five; and they
must eat with and talk to anyone in their fellowship who cares for their
conversation for an hour at least, at the nearest club-house of the
Samurai, once on three chosen days in every week. Moreover they must
read aloud from the Book of the Samurai for at least five minutes every
day. Every month
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