Page:Laws of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia.djvu/16

74 sustenance of the business man or such cultivator of the soil as has been employed by the business man for the purpose of raising grain upon his field. [Provide for maintenance of the laborers who actually do the work.]

50. If anyone borrows money upon a cultivated grainfield or cultivated sesame field he shall receive the grain or sesame which is grown upon that field. He shall pay back to the person making him the loan the money borrowed, with interest.

51. In event he is unable to repay the loan or money borrowed, he shall deliver to the lender grain or sesame [equal in value] to the amount of the sum borrowed, with interest, in accordance with the rate of interest provided by the royal tarifif [legal rate].

52. In event anyone borrows money upon a field and fails to raise grain or sesame whereby to repay his creditors, his indebtedness is not extinguished.

53. Anyone failing to keep his [irrigating] dam in repair and through his neglect and laziness a break occurs in the dam and his neighbors' lands are flooded by the overflow of the water therefrom, he shall compensate the owner of the damaged land for his loss of grain or other property [occasioned by the overflow].

54. In event he is unable to repay or make good the damage incurred by his neglect, his property is to be sold and those incurring damage through his negligence are to divide his property among themselves in accordance with the extent of the several losses occasioned by his negligence.

55. If anyone opens his canal for the purpose of irrigation [in a negligent manner] and thereby floods the fields [of his neighbors] shall be held to account to those neighbors and to pay them grain corresponding with their [the neighbors'] loss.

56. Anyone negligently and maliciously found to be guilty of flooding his neighbor's tillable fields shall measure out to that neighbor "gan" for every 10 "gur" of grain [destroyed thereby].

57. Any shepherd who, without the permission of the owner of a field, permits his cattle to graze upon another's field, shall permit the owner of the field upon which his cattle have grazed, to harvest his [the shepherd's] field and shall pay in addition thereto [to the owner of the devastated field] 20 "gur" of grain for every 10 "gan" destroyed by his wrong doing.

58. In event a shepherd, after his herd has left the general pasture and been coralled at the city gate, allows them to graze upon the field of another, that shepherd shall be compelled to keep that field which he has allowed his cattle to graze upon [in exchange for his own] and at the harvest time shall pay to the owner of the devastated field, for every 10 "gan," 60 "gur" of grain [destroyed by his wrong doing].

59. Anyone trespassing upon the land of another and cutting wood therefrom, shall pay to the owner thereof ½ "mine" of gold.

60. Anyone intrusting to a gardener a field [uncultivated] in order that it may be planted as a garden and the gardener thereupon enters upon the field and cultivates it and cares for it for a period of 4 years, the cultivator and the owner thereof shall divide with one another at the end of the fifth year the products of the field.

61. In event the gardener does not complete the planting of the field and leaves a part uncultivated [at the end of the fourth year] the