Des Arc weekly citizen., 1867-06-08
The Folly of Oppression.

without single exception, f@led-no matter when or by whom tried.
 It is that q brave and intelligent people who have for real or fancied wrongs appealed to the decision of the sword and been defeated, can be made to love their conquerors by de- liberate and systematic oppression. The strong arm of power may crush such people, destroy their national existence and convert them into race of outcasts without a country or a home but they will survive all this and live to finally triumph over those who forget that principles of right and eternal justice are as immutable and immortal as the Throne of God.
 No better complication of this historical truth can be found than that presented by the children of Abraham. Here is race which, as christians be- lieve, committed the unpardonable sin by rejecting and .crucifying the Re- deemer of mankind; and for this were stripped of nationality, driven from the land where for thousands of years they had lived and flourished, branded with the mark of Cain and sent forth bearing the weight of heavens ven- geance-given over, as it were, to the scorn, the insult, the outrage of the whole earth. The Hebrews have been the Pariahs of the human family, and for centuries it was esteemed, not only right, but a christian privilege and duty, to hunt them like savage beasts from city to city, from country to country, leaving them no protector but death, no refuge but the grave. Cath olics, Protestants, Mahommetans, hea- thens, if they could unite in nothing else, joined hands and hearts in perse- cutting the Jews. The object of all this holy hatred and spiritual coercion was their religious reconstruction ;" to force them to believe the same creed and trust for salvation to the same means which the majority of christen- dom believed and trusted. As sam- pie of the means used to accomplish this end, we give the following pro- visions of a Bayonne bill passed and enforced in England during the reign of Edward |:
 l. No Jew shall come to or depart from England without license, on pain of death.
 ,. No Jew shall walk or ride with out yellow badge upon his or her outward or upper garments, on pain of death.
 3. No Jew shall condemn Jesus Christ nor blaspheme His Divinity, on pain of being burned.
 1. No Jew shall stir out of his house or lodge on good Friday.
 .. No Jew shall strike a christian. on pain of having his right arm cut off.
 6. No Jew shall kill christian, on pain that he be haggcd alive on gib- bet and be fed daily on bread and wa ter until he dies.
 :. If any Jew shall cheat christian and escape, all the rest of the Jews shall make satisfaction to the christian so cheated.
 s. All the synagogues of the Jews shall be suppressed, and if any of their Rabbis or Jewish Priests shall teach or preach against the christian religion hereafter in England, all such teachers
 I I
 9. No Jew, on pain of hanging, shall transport any bullion or coin beyond the seas, nor dcface or melt down any christian coin.
 10. The Kings Judges shall not hear the testimony of a Jew against a christian.
 II. No Jew shall be sworn upon the Evangelists.
 l2. The Jews shall have four judges, , two thereof christians and the others Jews, who shall try and determine all causes between Jews and christians.
 l3. All the children of the Jews, as soon as born, the rector or vicar of the parish shall take from them, put such to nurses, and breed them up in the christian religion, for which the Jews , must pay all the charges. II. In the exchequer appointed for the Jews, there shall be half christians and half Jews; and both shall have equal power and different locks and , keys to prevent fraud. f 15. The Jews shall account for all the money they lay out and for the profits, and return before the judicia- ries over the Jews as soon as they shall be required.
 l6. If any Jew shall be converted to the christian faith, all his usurious ac- vuisitions are to be converted to pious and charitable uses, but all his goods, ! estate and moveahles shall be his own, l and not the king's as formerly accus- 3 toned.
 , IT, The Jews shall go to hear chris , tian doctrines once a week, and as many English Jews as turn christians shall be as free of England as if they were born of christian parents. IS. No Jew shall eohabit with a christian woman.
 : 19. No Jew shall be buried in conse- 5 craied ground.
 20. No Jew shall correspond with l any of the enemies of England. 2l. No Jew's widow shall have any right to administration, but after the deccase of her husband all the Jews effects and movables shall be vested in the king, and the king shall be execu. ! tor and administrator to all the Jews