Show ji r Ancient Methods of Graft T I II d. d j. j Wells avers ayers that the dishonest practices and and graft perpetrated upon the common people by bythe bythe bythe the high officials of the Roman republic would have made our present day politicians appear like mere tyros According to Dr Alfred Alred Zimmerman in his The Gr Greek e Commonwealth the city stat states s of G Greece Greece were not riot far tar behind behInd and and why should they be since be-since since I they had absolute power to do as air they pleased and nobody dared protest Sparta was an extreme Instance when It forced its ts people to accept iron bars ri as as f currency at an enormously enormously enormously enor enor- inflated value The states could debase their coinage because they could control the people who used it They could j pay ay a citizen at one rating of money and d demand mand pa payment ment from him at another For Tor instance a city state wo would ld frequently demand that hat all payments to itself be made in full weight This practice Is said sald to have hav originated in Babylon which which has been quoted as having haying one measure for forthe forthe forthe the state and another for the people At times a city state would call caU in all its outstanding outstanding out out- standing coins paying the own owners r rs by their actual debased weight These would be bo more debased than before and reissued to the people at lull full value alue A still more harsh measure was once adopted by Dionysius of f Syracuse who ordered his creditors on pain of death deith to bring him all aU the silver sUver they hey possessed When it arrived he it making two pieces out of each one received Copyright Press Publishing Company |