alleged to have been contracted by an uncle long dead. Another
had borrowed $50 on a bond for $100. Another had languished eighteen
months in gaol on a claim for $120; the amount originally advanced
to him was about $30, but the acknowledgment was for $60, which had
been renewed for $120 on its falling due and being dishonoured.
Another had borrowed $15 on agreeing to refund $30, which was
afterwards increased to $60 and then to $105. He has been imprisoned
three years. The debt of another, originally $16 for a loan of half
that amount, has since been doubled twice, and now stands at $64,
less $17 paid on account, while for forty-two measures of wheat
delivered on account he can get no allowance, though that was three
years ago, and four months afterwards he was sent to prison. Another
had paid off the $50 he owed for an advance of $25, but on some
claim for expenses the creditor had withheld the bond, and is now
suing for the whole amount again. He has been in prison two years
and six months. Another has paid twenty measures of barley on
account of a bond for $100, for which he has received $50, and he
was imprisoned at the same time as the last speaker, his debt being
due to the same man. Another had borrowed $90 on the usual terms,
and has paid the whole in cash or wheat, but cannot get back the
bond. He has previously been imprisoned for a year, but two years
after his release he was re-arrested, fourteen months ago. Another
has been two months in gaol on a claim for $25 for a loan of $12.
The last one has a bitter tale to tell, if any could be worse than
the wearisome similarity of those who have preceded him.

[19: All these statements were taken down from the lips of the
victims at the prison door, and most, if not all of them, were
supported by documentary evidence.]

"Some years ago," he says, "I and my two brothers, Drees and Ali,
borrowed $200 from a Jew of Mequinez, for which we gave him a notarial
bond for $400. We paid him a small sum on account every month, as we
could get it--a few dollars at a time--besides presents of butter,
fowls, and eggs. At the end of the first year he threatened to
imprison us, and made us change the bond for one for $800, and year
by year he raised the debt this way till it reached $3000, even after
allowing for what we had paid off. I saw no hope of ever meeting his
claim, so I ran away, and my brother Drees was imprisoned for six
years. He died last winter,