Words for the Wise | Page 2

might
afford to be a little generous and not say any thing about the interest;
and so I gave him a receipt in full. Didn't I do right?"
"In what respect?" asked the friend.
"In forgiving him the interest, which I might have claimed as well as

not, and which he would, no doubt, have paid down, or brought me at
some future time."
"Oh, yes. You were right to forgive the interest," returned the friend,
but in a tone and with a manner that struck the merchant as rather
singular. "No man should ever take interest on money due from an
unfortunate debtor."
"Indeed! Why not?" Mr. Petron looked surprised. "Is not money always
worth its interest?"
"So it is said. But the poor debtor has no money upon which to make an
interest. He begins the world again with nothing but his ability to work;
and, if saddled with an old debt--principal and interest--his case is
hopeless. Suppose he owes ten thousand dollars, and, after struggling
hard for three or four years, gets into a position that will enable him to
pay off a thousand dollars a year. There is some chance for him to get
out of debt in ten years. But suppose interest has been accumulating at
the rate of some six hundred dollars a year. His debt, instead of being
ten thousand, will have increased to over twelve thousand dollars by
the time he is in a condition to begin to pay off any thing; and then,
instead of being able to reduce the amount a thousand dollars a year, he
will have to let six hundred go for the annual interest on the original
debt. Four years would have to elapse before, under this system, he
would get his debt down to where it was when he was broken up in
business. Thus, at the end of eight years' hard struggling, he would not,
really, have advanced a step out of his difficulties. A debt of ten
thousand dollars would still be hanging over him. And if, persevering
to the end, he should go on paying the interest regularly and reducing
the principal, some twenty-five years of his life would be spent in
getting free from debt, when little over half that time would have been
required, if his creditors had, acting from the commonest dictates of
humanity, voluntarily released the interest."
"That is a new view of the case, I must confess--at least new to me,"
said Mr. Petron.
"It is the humane view of the case. But, looking to interest alone, it is
the best view for every creditor to take. Many a man who, with a little
effort, might have cancelled, in time, the principal of a debt
unfortunately standing against him, becomes disheartened at seeing it
daily growing larger through the accumulation of interest, and gives up

in despair. The desire to be free from debt spurs many a man into effort.
But make the difficulties in his way so large as to appear
insurmountable, and he will fold his hands in helpless inactivity.
Thousands of dollars are lost every year in consequence of creditors
grasping after too much, and breaking down the hope and energy of the
debtors."
"Perhaps you are right," said Mr. Petron;--"that view of the case never
presented itself to my mind. I don't suppose, however, the interest on
fifty dollars would have broken down Moale."
"There is no telling. It is the last pound, you know, that breaks the
camel's back. Five years have passed since his day of misfortune.
Fifteen dollars for interest are therefore due. I have my doubts if he
could have paid you sixty-five dollars now. Indeed, I am sure he could
not. And the thought of that as a new debt, for which he had received
no benefit whatever, would, it is more than probable, have produced a
discouraged state of mind, and made him resolve not to pay you any
thing at all."
"But that wouldn't have been honest," said the merchant.
"Perhaps not, strictly speaking. To be dishonest is from a set purpose to
defraud; to take from another what belongs to him; or to withhold from
another, when ability exists to pay, what is justly his due. You would
hardly have placed Moale in either of these positions, if, from the
pressure of the circumstances surrounding him as a poor man and in
debt, he had failed to be as active, industrious, and prudent as he would
otherwise have been. We are all apt to require too much of the poor
debtor, and to have too little sympathy with him. Let the hope of
improving your own condition--which is the mainspring of all your
business operations--be taken away, and instead, let there be only the
desire to pay off