The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-01-25 00:00:00

THE LEPERS IN JERUSALEM

(FROM THE DIARY OF AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER.
In my rambles about Jerusalem, I passed through the
quarter of the Lepers. Apart from the interest attached
to this unfortunate class of beings (arising from the
frequent allusion made to them in the Scripture,) there is
much in their appearance and mode of life to attract
attention, and enlist the sympathy of the stranger. Dirt
and diseases go revoltingly together here ; gaunt famine
stalks through the streets; a constant cry of suffering
swells upon the dead air, and sin broods darkly over the
ruin it has wrought in that gloomy and ill-fated spot.
Wasted forms sit in the doorways ; faces covered with
white scales and sightless eyes are turned upwards ;
skeleton arms, distorted and fetid with the ravages of
leprosy, are outstretched from the foul moving mass ; and
a low howl is heard, the howl of the stricken for alms.
Alms, oh, stranger, for the love of God ! alms to feed the
inexorable destroyer; alms to prolong this dreary and
hopeless misery! Look upon it, stranger, you who walk
forth in all your pride and strength, and breathe the fresh
air of heaven ; you who have never known what it is to
be shunned by your fellow man as a thing uncleaned and
accursed; you who deem yourself unblessed with all the
blessings that God has given you upon earth ; look upon
it, and learn that there is a misery beyond all that you
have conceived in your gloomiest hours—a misery that
can be endured, Learn that even the Leper, with death
gnawing at his vitals, and unceasing tortures in his blood,
cast out from the society of his fellow man ; forbidden to
touch, in friendship or affection, the hand of the un-
tainted ; still struggles for life, and deems each hour
precious that keeps him from the grave. The quarter of
the Leper is a sad and impressive place. By the laws of
the land, which-have existed from scriptural

imes, they
all actual contact with their fellow men ;
ems to be no prohibition to their going out
nd the walls of Jerusalem. and begging by the road
Near the gate of Zion, on the way to Bethlehem,
I saw many of them sitting on the rocks, their hideous
faces uncovered, thrusting forth their scaly hands for
alms. Their huts are rudely constructed of earth and
stones, seldom with more than one apartment, and this
so filthy and loathsome that it seemed unfit to be occupied
by swine. Here they live and propagate, whole families
together, without distinction of sex ; and their dreadful
malady is perpetuated from generation to generation ; the
groans of the aged and dying being mingled with the
feeble wail of the young that aro brought forth branded
for a life of misery. Strange and mournful thoughts
arise in the contemplation of the sad condition and pro-
bable destiny of these ill-fated beings. Among so many,
there must be some in whose breasts the power of true
love is implanted ; love for woman in its purest sense, for
offspring, for all the endearments of domestic life which
the untainted are capable of feeling. Yet they are
doomed never to exercise the affections without per-
petuating the curse. There must be some, too, in whom
there are hidden powers of mind, unknown save to them-
elves, ambition that corrodes with unavailing aspirations ;
thirst for action that burns within unceasingly, yet never
all the ruling passions that can be im-
nd noble purposes—n

are isolated fror

can be a

planted i

for great a

ever, never

to give one moment's pleasure unmixed with the perpc,,
gloom of that curse which dwells in their blood. As I
plodded my way for the last time through this den of
sickening sights, a vision of human misery was impressed
upon my mind that time cannot efface. I passed when
the rays of the sun were cold and the light was dim ; and
there came out from the reeking hovels leprous men,
gaunt with famine, and they bared their hideous bodies,
and howled like beasts ; and women held out their loath-
some and accursed babies, and tore away the rags that
covered them, and pointing to the shapeless mass,
shrieked for alms. All was disease, and sin, and sorrow,
wherever I went; and as I passed on, unable to relieve a
thousandth part of the misery, moans of despair and
howling curses followed me, and Lepers crawled back into
their hovels to rot in their filth, and die when God willed.

VICTOR HUGO is said to be at work on a new phillippic
and a new poem.
THE TWO MOST POPULAR POETS of America,Longfellow
and Holmes, are both professors at Haward University.
3(3"
MARTIN Crupps, the companion and fellow-
traveller
of Dr. Clarke, died recently in Sussex, at the
age of 73 years.

THE CATALOGUE OF BOOKS at the Leipsie fair for
previous years. new Publications, a great increase on

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM is about to publish, from
family documents, certain memoirs of the court and
cabinet of George the Third.

" PARLIAMENTARY LITERATURE" iS as!iuming
for-
midable position. During the past year the blue-books
sold realized something more than £40,000.
DOUGLAS JERROLD'S new comedy, entitled 1. st.
Cupid ; or Dorothy's Fortune," was produced at Wind-
sor Castle on Friday evening before Her Majesty.
THE LITERARY- INSTITUTIONS OF BIRMINGHAM have
most of them died out, and it is now proposed to arrange
the foundation of one giant institution for that town.

MR. DISRAELI'S " Lord George Bentinck," and Miss
Martineau's " History of the Thirty Years' Peace," have
been translated into German, and published at Berlin.
MR. SAMUEL PHILLIPS, the " literary gentleman" of
the Times, has had conferred on him a German doctorate,
spontaneously proffered to him at the instigation of
Chevalier Bunsen.

M. ALEXANDRE pumi.ks is publishing a new novel
of novels in the qonstztutzopne./, embodying the thoughts
and feelings of his busy lifetipie. Its title is " Isaac
Laquedern," and its subject is—The Wandering Jew.
There are to be six novels within the novel. The most
!sacred personages of the Old and New Testaments are freely
Introclaced talking and acting.