S should have a loan of $2,500 for the same term of eighteen months, and on the same terms. And to these terms S assents, and the notes are accordingly made and discounted; S and the directors both knowing that the utmost value of the stock in the market at the time was but $80 the share. Held, this was a sale of stock, at an exorbitant price, coupled with a loan of money arising out of a proposition to borrow money; the sale and the loan one entire contract inseparably connected with each other, and the one dependent on the other; and the transaction, and S's notes made and discounted by the bank in pursuance of the agreement, were usurious. Bank of Valley v. Stribling, 7 Leigh, 26. 52. A contract to take, for the loan of one hundred and fortytwo shares of bank stock for a year, thirty additional shares, is not void under the statute of usury; for the one hundred and forty-two shares to be returned, may not, at the time of returning them, be of any greater value than the one hundred and forty-two shares received, at the time of receiving them, with the dividends or interest added. Steptoe v. Harvey, 7 Leigh, 501. (Sed quere. If payable in genere and not in specie.) 53. It is settled in Virginia, that the taking the discount in advance upon discounting a note at a bank is not usurious, and that the including the day of payment of the first note in the second note, whereby the bank receives under each note interest for the same day, is not usury. ། 54. The State Bank of N. C. discounted a note made by the defendants, in renewal of which other notes were afterwards, from time to time, made and discounted; and it was found, by a special verdict, that the bank was in the habit of using, in its calculations of interest, Rowlett's tables, which consider three hundred and sixty days as a * year, instead of three hundred and sixty-five days, the effect of which is to make the interest for every fraction of a year somewhat more than at the rate of six per cent. per annum. Held, this mode of calculating interest does not make the transaction usurious. 55. At a time when the State Bank of N. C. had suspended specie payments, the defendant offered to the bank a note for discount, accompanied by an offer in case his note should be discounted to exchange an equal amount of northern funds for N. C. bank notes. A bill was accordingly drawn upon a firm in Virginia at ninety days, and the same being accepted, the bill and note were both discounted, with a further condition annexed to the note, that it should be paid in Virginia or other northern bank notes. The bank paid for the bill and note in its own notes in part, and in part in the notes of other banks in N. C., all of which were at the time under par in Raleigh, from three and a half to four and a half per cent. At the time of the discount, suits were depending against the bank upon its notes to coerce payment of them. The notes received by the defendant were, in the presence of the president and cashier of the bank, handed over to the acceptor to meet his acceptance with them, and then pay the balance to the defendant; the president and cashier knowing the loss to which the defendant would be subjected. The notes were sold in Virginia at a loss of from two and a half to three and a half per cent. and the bill paid at maturity in Virginia or United States Bank notes. These notes were at par at the time of the discount, and the president and directors of the N. C. bank knew at the time that their notes were not of equal value. Held, notwithstanding, the transac tion was not usurious. Dissent, Tucker, president. State Bank of N. C. v. Cowan, 8 Leigh, 238. Upon the principle that there was some contingency, as other northern funds might be of Philadelphia, New York or Boston at three or four per cent. below par, and the bank in such case might not receive more than six per cent. after all. 56. Where usury is relied on by a defendant in equity to defeat a plaintiff's whole claim, the facts constituting the usury must be distinctly alleged, and clearly proved according to the allegation, but it is not necessary to allege them with the formal strictness of a plea of usury. at law. Case in which the defence of usury was held to be well made in the answer. 57. Where, upon a loan of money, the lender besides his principalcontracts to receive, in lieu of interest, something which may be worth more than six per cent. per annum, though it may perhaps prove to be worth less, as the dividends on bank stock; the contract is usurious. 58. A debtor owing a certain number of shares of bank stock, agrees with his creditor to pay him, at a future day, the market price. of the stock on that day, or $150 per share, at the creditor's option, with the dividends. Held, the contract is usurious. 59. A party may lawfully lend stock to be replaced, or he may lend the produce of it as money, or he may give the borrower the option to pay it in one way or the other. But he cannot legally reserve to himself to determine in future which it shall be. Smith v. Nichols, 8 Leigh, 330. 60. A borrower at usurious interest, having executed a bond and deed of trust to secure the repayment of the loan, files a bill in equity against the lender and the trustee, alleging the usury, and that the trustee is about to sell the property conveyed to raise the amount of the bond; and praying that the defendant may be compelled to answer all the allegations of the bill, that the sale by the trustee may be enjoined, the trust property reconveyed to the plaintiff, the bond delivered up on such terms and conditions as are equitable, and that such other and further relief may be granted to plaintiff as is agreeable to equity and the nature of his case. Held, though the borrower might have elected to ask merely the opportunity of trying the question of usury at law, yet, as by the terms of the bill, he has sought full relief in equity, he shall only be relieved on the terms of paying the principal money due. On a bill in equity for relief against a usurious debt unpaid, whether the usury be confessed in the answer, or proved by the evidence, the plaintiff shall be relieved on payment of the principal justly due without interest. Dissent, Brooke, J., who held that where usury is not discovered in the answer, but proved aliunde, the case is not within the 3d section of the statute against usury, (1 Rev. Code, ch. 102,) and the plaintiff should therefore be compelled to pay the principal with legal interest. 62. Quere, whether a bond executed in Virginia for money borrowed in Pennsylvania, is to be deemed a Virginia contract or a contract made with reference to the law of Pennsylvania, and to be governed by that law? It seems it is a Virginia contract. 63. A contract entered into in another state, in violation of the usury law of that state, cannot be considered as made with reference to the law of the place of contract; but the rights of the contracting parties, if litigated in this state, must be determined by our own law. Turpin v. Povall, 8 Leigh, 93. 64. B represents to A that he had been desirous of purchasing C's ⚫ land, but had not done so from inability to advance funds as speedily as C required, and that he wishes A to buy the land, and let him have it; whereupon it is agreed that A will buy the land as cheap as he can, and that B will pay him $900 for it. A makes the purchase at $750, and the land is conveyed to B, who gives his note to A for the $900. Held, the transaction between A and B is free from objection on the ground of usury. 9 Leigh, 556. SECTION XXXI. WISCONSIN. Passed at the session of November, 1838. SECTION 1. That any rate of interest which persons may agree upon not exceeding twelve per centum per annum, shall be legal and valid: Provided, that upon all bills of exchange, promissory notes, contracts, debts, or demands, wherein the rate of interest is not otherwise specified, it shall be computed at seven dollars, for the giving day of payment on the sum of one hundred dollars for one year, and after that rate for a greater or less sum, or for a longer or shorter time: Provided further, that no bank or corporation, except where it is otherwise provided by their charters, shall recover or take directly or indirectly, more than seven per cent. interest for any sum or sums of money loaned. SECT. 2. If a person or corporation shall take, accept, or receive, for giving day of payment, upon any bill of exchange, promissory note, contract, debt, or demand, a greater rate of interest than is herein before limited, such person or corporation shall forfeit three times the amount of the excess, to be recovered with costs of suit, in the name of the person or persons so paying any excess of interest, in an action of assumpsit, before any court having competent jurisdiction: Provided that the suit is commenced within one year from the day of payment of such excess of interest. SECT. 3. This act shall take effect from and after its passage. CHAPTER II PRECEDENTS OF PLEAS. SECTION I. Indictment for usury, and judgment record thereon. MIDDLESEX, (to wit,) Be it remembered, that at the general quarter-sessions of the peace of the lady the queen, holden for the county of Middlesex at Hicks Hall in Saint John Street in the county aforesaid, on Friday in the week next after the feast of the Epiphany, to wit, the twelfth day of January in the third year of the reign of our lady Ann, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland queen, defender of the faith, &c. before James Mundy, sergeant at Law, Ralf Bucknall, Francis Tyssen, Thomas Owen, Edmund Prideaux, Joseph Offley, John Herbert, Nicholas Woolstenholme, John Perry, Martin Ryder, Richard Woodward and others, their fellows justices of the said lady the queen, assigned to keep the peace in the county aforesaid, and also to hear and determine divers felonies, trespasses and other misdemeanours committed in the same county, by the oath of William Rathbone, George Bishop, Laurence Crosse, William Smith, Peter Sparks, Robert Bending, William Smart, Edward Hicks, Anthony Fryer, John Farren, John Sutton, Nicholas Meeter, Edward Davenport, Richard Hale, Jeremiah Mason, Thomas Derry, Thomas Ward, Peter Sharp, Moses Wilkinson, Robert Pitts, Nahum Crossley, and Thomas Beauman, honest and lawful men of the county aforesaid, then and there sworn and charged to inquire for the said lady the queen for the body of the county aforesaid, it is presented, that Dorothy Smith, late of the parish of Saint Clement Danes in the county of Middlesex, widow, on the 20th day of August in the third year of the reign of the lady Ann, by the grace of God, queen of England, &c. at the parish aforesaid in the |