The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-26
THE OCTOBER MAGAZINES.
1.-THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

"Our Israelitish Brethren, James Parton;
'Joseph and His Friend, X, Bayard Taylor;
Regret" Celia Thaxter; 'Irony," f. III.
Hedge; "Oldtown Fireside Stories" Harriet
Beecher Stowe; "Speckled Trout" John Bur-
roughs; 'My Retreat" ga German Land
lady" Fl. H.; ''Under the Skylight," g. p.
Cranch; "Some English Workingmen," JUS
tin Mccarthy; Jeremiah S. Black and Edwin
M. Stanton, Henry Wilson; 'four Months
with Charles Dickens" ga Virginian in New
England Thirty-fve. Years Ago" III; The
New American Polar Expedition and its
Hopes, L. B. Maury; Reviews and Literary
Notices"
From ''Our Israelitish Brethren" by James
Parton, we make this extract
Did the reader ever try to compute what it
has cost our Israelitish brethren to keep two
SUNDAYS q week, and four sets of holidays
year Besides their own religious and
national festivals, they have been compelled,
generally under ruinous penalties, to abstain
from business on those of the countries in
which they have dwelt. Thus in Catholic
countries, for several centuries, they were
obliged to be idle:-1. Fifty-two Sundays; 2.
Thirty holidays of obligation; 3. Fifty-two
Saturdays or Sabbaths; 4. An average
of twelve other holidays of their own; total,
one hundred and forty-six days per annum,
or about two days in every five. In Protest
ant countries, the usual number of idle days,
including their ffty-two Saturdays and
twelve festivals and fasts, has been one
hundred and ten, or about two days in every
six. In other words the Jews in Catholic
countries have been obliged, by law and con-
science to abstain from business nearly
three days q week, and in Protestant countries
a little more than two. Of late years,
since Catholics have become much less strict
in the observance of Sundays and holidays,
the Jews suffer more inconvenience in Pro-
testant than in Catholic lands. The rigor of
the Scotch and the Puritan Sunday is espe-
cially grievous to them, even to the present
hour; while in Paris, Hamburg, and Vienna
Sunday is, in some branches of business, the
best day of the week.
This fact of the double set of holidays
would alone have suffced to exclude them
from agriculture. A ripe harvest will not
wait from Friday till Monday for any of our
scruples; and two good planting days lost in
late, wet spring would often make the diff
ference between crop and no crop. Fancy
ket-gardener in strawberry time, or
florist in May, obliged to cease work half an
hour before sunset Friday afternoon, and
unable to offer anything for sale
till Monday morning! Even the thirty
Catholic holidays of obligation placed the
farmers of Catholic countries under disad-
vantage that was obvious to all who lived
near the line dividing Catholic from a Pro-
testant country. Voltaire, who lived for
thirty years close to the frontier of France,
within two miles of Protestant Geneva,
dwells upon this in many passage of ex-
quisite satire. Readers remember the
scene in which the priest rushes from the
tap-room, ''red with wrath and wine, "
to rebuke the yeoman who had "the
insolence and impiety' to plough his
field on Saints day, ''instead of going to
the tavern and drinking like the rest of the
parish. The poor gentleman was ruined; he
left the country with his family and servants,
went to foreign land, turned Lutheran, and
his lands remained uncultivated for many
years." If thrifty extra holidays were seri-
GUS injury to French farmers, it will not be
questioned that ninety-four made agriculture
an impossible pursuit to Israelites
Let us accompany good orthodox Jewish
family through their calm and cheerful Sab
bath, and see how they keep it and enjoy it..
select an orthodox family, instead of a Gre
formed, merely because the orthodox Jew is
an historical person; as he keeps his Sabbath,
his fathers have kept it for many centuries.
The Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday
evening half an hour before sunset, and ends
on Saturday evening half an hour after sun.
set, or when a star is visible in the sky. On
Friday, the day of preparation, the women
and girls of the family are busy in providing
for whatever is eaten or drank during the Joy.
GUS sacred hours must be the very best the
family can afford. Poor Jews will pinch all
the week in order that their wives and chill
dren may have something delicious to eat OF
the Sabbath. But that savory food must be
cooked or prepared for cooking before the
Sabbath begins; for our Israelitish brethren
observe with just strictness the law which
gives rest on the Day of Rest to their ser
wants. They shame us in this particular
They will not use even their horses on thei
Sabbath. On a Sunday, about II NJ, yol
may see in front of DIR. Adams fashionabl,
Presbyterian church, in Madison Square, New
York, or around DIR. Tyng's fashionable Epis
copal church, in st. Georges Squar
of the same city, from twenty t.
forty well-appointed equipages wait
ing for the last hymn to be finished
but you will never see vehicle before tn
superb Temple Emmanuel, a Jewish syna
gogue in the Fifth avenue, although ther
are many families within who could rid
home, if they would in their own carriages
I do not say that the Christians are wrong o
the Jews right in this. 1t is no ones bust
ness but their own. But if we borrow the
Hebrews word Sabbath" and adopt, yer
bally, their Sabbatical law, our practice per
haps ought to conform in some degree to ou
profession. 1t probably does not severely ia,
those coachmen and footmen to show OF
their gay turnouts and brilliant liveries on
fine Sunday morning in the Fifth avenue
But for the heavy-laden drudges of the board
ing-house kitchen, and the maid-of-all worl
in average families, could wish we were al
Jews from Saturday night till Monday morn
ing. 1t is a dastardly shame to compel @
1hn hou 10 cd 6