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


Rufus gave him back thirty marks TO stop his
mouth.
oxford was in that time almost Jewish
city. The best houses belonged to men of this
race, who boarded the Rnglish students, and
established schools for the study OF Hebrew
law. Lombard Hall, Moses Hall, and Jacob
Hall were centres OF leurning. A great syna-
gogue was built, and the Jews were popular
with students sndlearned emen. Great rabbis
lectured on their faith, and two quarters of
oxford were known as the Old Jewry and the
New Jewry. ~
The Jews grew fat, and fat men are incsu-
tious. In the reign Of Henry the First the
monks began to show their teeth; and from
this reign downward the Church led the mob
to attack the Jews. In the reign Of Stephen
they were fined and imprisoned; In the reign
OF Richard the First they were massaored; in
the reign OF John they were cheated and robbed;
and so far forward until the reign Of Edward
the First, when they were finally expelled the
kingdom, under pain of death. Then came
time Of silence and exclusion. For three hun
dred years the law of England had no mercy
on the Jew. He was an infdel, q oagot, q
leper, thing that could not live upon the
English soil. The offsnses charged upon the
Jews, and held to justify their expulsion from
a country In which they had dwelt before the
Norman baron and the Saxon yeoman came
into the land, were such as to raise smile in
more considerate and more critical times.
They debssed the coin, they forestslled the
markets, they gibed at images. they poisoned
the wells, they strove to convert the Chris
tians, they kidnapped young children, whom
they sacrificed as burnt offerings.
One accusation reused the anger OF the COM
mons, second justified suspicion in the
mobiles. But our sires were far more ignorant
and superstitious than unjust. Nine out of
every ten men in this kingdom believed that
Robert, of st. Edmund's Bury, was killed by
the Jews, and that his blood was sprinkled en-
their altar by the high priest. Our fathers
were not singular in these beliefs. No page
in the long story of popular delusions is more
striking than that which tells of the widely
spread conviction that Jews put men-especi-
ally boys and young men-to death to get their
blood. This belief was found in Paris and in
Seville, in Alexandria and in Damascus, lust
rs 1t was found in Oxford and in London. Nay,
it is still to be found in the South and in the
Bast. n Many persons..in Rome, and yet more
in Jerusalem, assure you that the Passover
cannot be properly kept unless the cakes are
naked with Christian blood. No Easter ever
passes by without quarrels In Zion provoked
by this superstition The Greek and the Ar
menian cling to their old traditions, and
every little fray in the Holy City between Jew
and Christian leads to charge and counter
charge, which the grave and impartial Turks
have to decide according to their written
law. A few years ago these questions were
raised so often in Palestine, that the Sultan
issued commission of inquiry into the facts
alleged and denied, when both sides were
heard, the Jewish books were overhauled by
mutt, and an imperial decree was issued, of
which all pashas and csdis must take note,
declaring that the Greek and Armenian allie
cations were untrue. The higher English
Knights and had mobiles other reasons for
their hatred Of the Jews. Some of these
mobiles may have really feared--as they GER
tainly said they feared-that the richer Jews
would bribe the courtiers over to their faith.
Such things were freely said in Italy and
Spain. Still more, the Jews were much
more eliberal,' as it is called, than their
sturdy neighbors. Many of the Jews were
learned men, and learned men are apt to laugh
at things which vulgar folks hold sacred. An
Oxford Hebrew Knocked St. Frideswide, saying
he could cure as many sick persons as the
saint herself. The legend runs that the
mocking Jew went mad and hung himself in
his own kitchen-which is perhaps polite
way of telling the tumultuous story of popu-
lar ire and priestly vengeance. Some of these
learned men were learned in the way to ex-
cite suspicion: they were alchemists, sor-
cerers, and astrologers, professors of Magian
art, dealers in charms and amulets, agents Of
the Sersglio and the Court. But their true
offense was-they were rich.
They were rich, and the world could not
forgive them. The fact is, the Jew, who is by
nature shepherd and wine-grower-s man
who delights in the pasture and the garden,
and whose national poetry breathes in the tent,
the flock, and the watercourse-had been driven
by abominable laws from the courses which he
loved into the practice of acts which were
originally foreign to his race. When Hebrew
could hold land of his own, he was neither a
peddler nor money-lender. He sheared his
own sheep, he planted his own olives, he
pressed his own grapes, he threshed his own
corn. Under that Roman law, which the
Church sent into Western Europe, Jew was
forbidden to own land; hence he was driven
into trade, which his genius converted into
profitable calling. Most of all, he took to
buying and selling money; to lending on inte-
| rest and security-a vocation for which few
| men are naturally fit. The Jews are dealers
in monev, and nearly every man of influence
in the Plantsgenet Court was in their debt.
That was otfense enough, and for that
offense they were driven into foreign lands.
They we're driven away from this island with
as much cruelty as their brethren afterwards
underwent in Spain. The Church put them
to the ban, cursed them, plundered them, and
drove them forth. For four hundred years
that stern decree was held. But change was
coming for the holy race. The Iron Age was
almost past; and though the golden prime
was yet far of, the wiser spirits were looking
for brighter day. Luther, Cranmer, Calvin,
all the great spirits OF the Reformation had
been the unconscious friends of Israeli and
when the sentiment of respect for private
Judgment in affairs of faith had entered deeply
into mems minds, habit OF liberation followed
in its wake, Of which the Hebrew found hii
share.
The Puritans were warm admirers of the