The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1882-11-16
vitality Of the Jewish Race.

The members of the Jewish race have,
up to the present period of history, pre-
rsented the most remarkable of all the
vitalities, and those Of them who are
united to the other races by ties of
blood, though not by any profession or
religious indication, arc hardly less
privileged. In England and Wales we
compute the number of professed Jews
does not exceed $4,000, some say not
over 100000; but in addition to these, if
physiological readings be true, and 1
feel sure they are, there is an enormous
Christianized jewish population which,
| under exceedingly broad and Protestant
principles, accept the Christian faith
with tendency to Puritanic simplicity,
and all but Judaic method, and in which
| the names, the beliefs, the traditions of
the jewish people, as rendered in their
sacred writings, find their, repettions.
| But l notice now, in regard to vitality,
| the most truly typical Of tho Semitic
| type-those, namely, who profess and
call themselves Jews-and it is they, I
| specially repeat, who show an eXcep-
tional tenacity to life, under Giro UNI
! stances which at first sight would seem
! to cause tho utmost resistance to life. l
| have investigated this matter with the
| greatest care, and, not to trouble YOU
| by repeating in detail wh0t l have
already published, may state in brief
terms that during all ages of life, under
al conditions Of life to which it has been
| subjected, under prosecutions the most
| pan'u, under suppression of liberty the
most detcrminate, under residences in
confined quarters of towns that were
| practically prisons, under isolation the
most pititul, under contempts the most
cruel, the Jewish family has maintained
81 vitality AID health which is at once q
! model t. the other families of men
among which it has been destined. or
should rather have said permitted, to
| exist. The Jews are not free from pro-
clivities to disease Of serious constitu-
tional kind. They are comparatively
free from consumption; they are very
free from these zymotic diseases or pes
| tlence5, smallpox, measles, scarlet
| fever, and such like, which carry off so
| largely the children of other races they
are very free, that is to say, they have
been very free, from the diseases which
spring from poverty; and they arc very
free from the diseases which spring from
idleness, oStentation, and luxury. The
particular hereditary disease from which
they suffer is cancer. According to my
experience they are more disposed
10 that malady than either Saxon or
Celt, but it is not sufficiently widespread
to effect the general results of the tena-
cious life pertaining to thcm. For the
benefits they have received in the way
of life and health the Jewish family has
been indebted to wise sanitary laws and
regulations bequeathed to them from of
old, to thrift and provision for the NOR
row, to peacefulness of heart, to domes-
tic virtue, and most of all to sobriety.
1t is hard to tell whether, when set free
from every political and religious op-
preston, left to make their own course
in open competition with other people,
receiving from their fathers the wealth
of their past, wealth of wisdom, wealth
of simple homeiness, wealth of riches,
wealth of vitality, they will retain and
bank the same treasures or take out and
squander all. At the present time it is
as if the finger of prophecy was point
ing to the last-namcd fatc.-Dr. Rich-
arlSon, IN Frazcr'S Magazine.