The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-29

From the london Athenost9n M
On dark December day, three hundred and
four years ago, a body Of men assembled in
the long gallery of Whitehall to discuss the
darkest topic on which the wit of Roundbead
trooper and Puritan divine had ever bsen
employed. Cromwell sat in the chair Of state.
Below him were the Lord Chief Baron, the
Lord Chief Justice Glynn Lord Mayor Draper,
sheriff Thompson, and a host OF preachers :
Dr.OWen, DIR. Goodwin, Mr.. Cradock, and
Others then known to City madams and
whitehall beauties as the most popular
preachers of their time. Well-worn Bibles
lay before them ON the board of green cloth;
old monkish chronicles, old Acts of Parlia-
ment, old Court records, were also heaped
about. The tones had been searched for evi-
denoe; the best lawyers had been employed to
state the case, and the Talmudists had been
consulted as to facts. The purpose Of the
meeting was to deduoe from the prophetical
Scriptures from the ancient Je wish writings,
:, and from the actual statutes of this realm,
the duty of English statesmen, living in
righteous commonwealth, towards the people
Of God.
~ The subject had been brought before Crom-
well In striking way. Alearned Dutch Jew,
called Manasseh ben Israel, had come over
from Amsterdam to lay the cause of his people
before the Council; and the Lord Protector,
even in the stress OF his great schemes, took
mp the tale and summoned his big men OF the
law and divinity to debate the matter in his
own presence. ,-.
In those days no Jew could openly live and
trade in England. Now and then Jew came
over into the land; came over as q courtly
physician, princely traveller, or a wealthy
goldsmith; but in order to evade the law, and
deceive the mob, he had to put on O fereign
air, and pass as either an Arab, an Italian,
or q Portuguese. Spain herself had not whipped
the holy race with sharper thongs than the
island which once had been their happiest
home.
81 No one knows when the Jews first came into
England. They were here before the Norman
Conquest. They were here when Hengst
landed. II is probable that they were here
before Cesar came. Some writers derive the
name of Britain from a Hebrew word: from
Barat- anach, tin island, which would be very
ingenious il either Barat meant tin, or anach
island. When the Romans land, we get on
safer ground. One Of the edicts of Augustus
speaks of the Jews in Britain. One of the
Roman bricks dug up in Mark Lane has the
story Of Samson and the Foxes stamped upon
it. Beds mentions the Jews in connection with
the great controversy on the tonsure. Ecgbert
forbade the Saxon Christians to attend Jewish
feasts a fact which implies not only that we
had synsgogues and ceremonials in England,
but that q friendly intercourse then existed
between the native Christians and the native
Jews. In the Crowland Abbey records there
is an entry which proves-if the record itself
be genuine-that Jews could hold land, and
that they were in the habit of endowing monks
and nuns with some part of their wealth.
The first storm Of persecution struck them
when the Pagan Danes defowefed the island,
Canute was not their friend. Some say he
drove them from the country; and this is
legend which the Jews accept as true. 1t is
hardly likely that all were sent away; but
those who stayed behind were treated in q new
and cruel spirit. The Jews were no longer free.
They lost their right to hold land. They could
no longer appeal to the courts of law. We hear
no more of Christians going into the syna-
gogues, of Hebrews leaving money to the
converts. All the springs of charity were sealed.
Only under the name OF kings men," and
very nearly in the position of slaves, were
few wealthy and useful families permitted to
hold their ground. 'The Jew, and all that he
has, belong to the king" runs the law of
Edward the Confessor-a law which was GER
tainly not dead letter in the succeeding
times.
The Jews made very slight progress in Eng
land until the Norman baron, with his strong
arm and greedy NAV, invited the rich traders
? and tiremen of that race from France. Crowds
of Jews now settled in Stamford and in York;
afterwards they came to Oxford and London,
and during the first golden period Of their re-
by art and trade. In London they dwelt in
two several places, both of which localities
were determined by the fact of Jews being
considered as "the Kings men''-not as ordi-
nary citizens--free of the ordinary law. One
Of their quarters lay in the City proper, the
quarter off Cheapside, in which stood the
ancient London Palace. This quarter was
called from them the Jewry. They clustered
about the old palace, because they were "the
Kings men," and found their only pro-
lection under the palace walls. The
second quarter, which lay beyond the
city towards the east, was also a royal
quarter, being close to the Kings Tower
part OF London over which the Mayor and
Aldermen had only limited right OF sway.
When the prince was weak the Jews fed into
the Tower, which was sometimes crowded with
Jews 80 closely that pestilence broke out, and
scattered both the fugitives and their protec-
tors to the four winds. When the prince was
strong, his ''men'' multiplied in number
swarming backward from the Tower ditch into
the district now known as the Mnories, and
the swamp called Hounds Ditch. The great
merchants of the sacred race dwelt in the City,
the poor hucksters and chspmen near the
Tower. Hence the first quarter is called Old
Jewry. the second quarter Poor Jewry.
Policy led the earlier Norman kings to be-
friend this gifted and useful race against the
monks and against the mob. Rufus, indeed,
was so far attached to them that some writer's
fancy he had thoughts Of becoming Jew
himself. But this is an inference from facts
which bear totally different construction.
Rufus resisted any sttemptto convert the Jews;
and on q notable occasion he called before
him certain converts in Rouen, and bade
them return to the faith of their fathers;
whence IL has been inferred that he was in