LAWS OF THE OLDEN TIME.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3425, 13 December 1879, Page 4

LAWS OF THE OLDEN TIME.

The old laws of Greece and Koine respeeling debtors were very severe. Under the "Athenian law a noble wns enabled to seize the person of his insolvent debtor and sell him as a slave. Under this law numbers of debtors were torn from tlieir liomes and families, and were condemned to end their days in the service of a foreign master, while others were compelled to sell their children in order to satisfy the demands of their creditors. Solon's first measure was a disburdening ordinance, which relieved the debtor, partly by a reduction of the rate of interest- and partly by lowering the standard of the silver coinage. He also released the pledged lands, and finally be abolished the law by which a creditor might enslave his debtor and restored some to freedom who were pining in Bondage. If a Eoman borrowed money, lie was expected to enter into a contract with his creditor to pay tho debt by a certain day; and if on that day he was unable to discharge his obligation, he was summoned before the patrician judge, who was authorised by law to assign the defaulter as a bondsman to his creditor; that is, the debtor was obliged to pay by his own labor the debt which he was unable to pay in money. If a man incurred a debt with out such formal contract the rule was still more imperious, for in that case the law fixed the day of payment, and if after a lapse of thirty days from that date the debt was not. discharged the creditor was empowered to arrest the person of his debtor, to load him with chains, and feed him on bread and water for another thirty days; then if the money still remained unpaid he might put him to death or sell his body to the highest bidder, or if there were several creditors they might hew ' his body in pieces and divide it.