The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; / containing a collection of over one thousand of the most / laughable sayings and jokes of celebrated wits and / humorists.

by Various

MURDER AND SUICIDE.

A clergyman preaching against lending money on usury, asserted it to be as great a sin as murder. Some time after, he applied to a parishioner to lend him twenty pounds. "What!" said the other, "after declaring your opinion that to lend money on usury, was as bad as murder?" "I do not mean," answered the parson, "that you should lend it to me on usury, but gratis." "That," replied the parishioner, "would, in my opinion, be as bad as suicide."