Morning journal and courier., 1892-04-23
Russian frontier, on arriving ss the Cloth.

Russian frontier, on arriving ct the Cloth.
 hall on the Aarket-Place was somewhat an-
 noyed by the frenzied movement of the
 peasant marketmen in their efforts to get
 out of the way. An officer whose horse
 shied from contact with e rustic carrying
 some fowls slung over his shoulder in will
 low cages, drew his sabre and with . ssy-
 age overhead cut severed two fingers from
 the defenceless mans hand. Apparently
 it would have been quite the same had the | mans head followed his fngers.
 As though this were not sufficient infs-
 my, foot soldier standing near, after an
 humble salute to the brave officer, picked
 the discovered fingers from the street and
 tossed them, as though they had been links
 of sausage, to a bevy of half-famished
 dogs shrinking and snarling beneath 6 Hungarian gipsy cart standing near, and
 these animals devoured them after nearly devouring each other in battle over these
 unusual and delicious morsels.
 | The treatment of the Polish Jews is inde-
 scribsbly dreadful. Truly 6 majority of these here form 6 lostheeome lot. But they are victims of misfortune. No Jew | is by nature slothful or vile. All Jews are | active, patient, vigorous and brave in all things tending to f-sustenance. Those of Cracow are mainly helpless victims of Russian persecution. So many have made | by very force of numbers and desperation
 of situation they swarm hks wolves around every opportunity of the slightest gain. But thousands upon thousands ex- ist in a condition of such awful want, l starvation and misery, that it would ssem | in any place where God was owned some touch of human consideration and pity | might find expression. You cannot find | it in Crscow. They are beaten from be- fore soldiers and officials with slaves. Po- lice disperse begging crowds with swords, striking right and left and wounding pro- miscuously.
 Those of gentle O blood seem to have acquired the right to svenge all Poland's national wrongs on these lucklese humans I have seen little girls not yet in their teens strike them apparently As 6 mere di- version. The aristocracy from highest to lowest consider it no crime to chastise them openly and unresentedly on any pre- text of offence. The very next morning after my arrival here I saw e half naked Jewish child being carried along with broken leg dangling from its body. It had amused some lordling or official in car begged to ride over it. I had some respect for Polish character, gained I will admit from Polish history, before came to Cra- COW.
 Whatever the Polish aristocraey have been in the past, they are brutss beyond the limits of human language to reveal in their treatment of interiors, and especially of these Jewish wretches of misfortune and misery. And for my part can zee no altar or shrine, or cruci6I, or vicar of God in this ancient city without losthing em- blem. place and priest where such inhu- man hearts can worse than murder and adore.
 My guide through the ghastly shell of @ civilized city was secured through incident of iniquitous brutality, trifing indeed for Cracuw. but still illustrative of its genial and kindly atmosphere. had truly been unbearably pestered by 6 horde of Jews from money changers down to the most repulsive of beggars, and finally conceived the plan of srraying myself in the most Polish and least expensive of attire.
 It proved successful device. In this raiment had visited the Tatrs mountains, and had returned to Cracow so torn by | brushwood and bespattered by mud of the | highways that I was quite free to enjoy the city from the neither side of aspect. | It was 8 relief, too, from strain upon both | temper and purse.
 In this habilament and attitude I was standing before bakers window interest | ed in an odd form of bread which is fssh- toned and baked in an excellent imitation of a crown of thorns, much used during the Lenten period in Galicia. Another still more dolorous object than myself stood before the window. It was Polish Jew, ragged, wasted, wan and old. I have seen longing and hunger on as many faces as has any other one who lives; but new CT before saw both so pathetic and terrible as in this one white face.
 At this moment 8 bevy of soldiers clsnked by. Both myself and the ancient Jew stood at the edge of the pavement, in the old mans face attracted the soldiers' attention as we'll as my own. Some turned, glanced and cursed. One said with an oath:
 "He will draw the loaves the window through with that nosel"
 of the loaf Grown of thorns) was bis belly therein, it should cut with blood his paunch through" sneered another.
 "Ach, GottI" shouted the bravest of them all, as he sprang to the old mans side in a seeming frenzy of rage. feared he would strike him down. But he did not. He only spst in his face and called him "Jew dogr'-"Earth-rotl and names beastlier still. Then they turned and went merrily away.
 And it is true that this poor old man, for fear of his life, as he afterwards told me, dare not attempt to remove the froth foulness from his face until these Chris tian soldiery had turned into the market place. But I had done it for him before that.
 l then led him into the bakers, and then into a cafe, and then into a wine-shop, and Christian money never did quicker or more direct missionary work than on that morning when, God knows, for the first aud only time in my life l longed to be 6 Rothschild.
 This poor stranded old human had been & Jewish teacher in a not remote Russian village, and had been knoted out of his home by Cossacks, his feeble wife perish ing in the flight from fright and fatigue. He had got as far as Cracow. That, as with thousands upon thousands more, was to be his living grave under conditions of misery and outrage more awful than those which once made infamous the name of religion in Madrid, Neuremberg or Salem unless the little I spared him could get him to kinfolk in Berlin.
 He showed me the appalling scenes among the Jews in CasimierI, the Jewish quarter. Then, scholar that be was, he told me one by one the legends gray and dim of the crumbling Zamek; pointed out the solid silver shrine of St. StanislAus with its supporting angels, the Flemish brassss above the tomb of the Cardinal-bishop, son of Casimir, King of Poland, and all the graven treasures and wonders of the sixteen chapels, in the great cathedral; led the way to the university with its statue of Corpernicus, who was once professor there; and brought me to the Schatx- hammer to view the Polish regalia and the dazzling mass robes of old. But the human graveyard stifles me. The white | face of this one old man stands between me and Poland's ancient city of kings, shutting out all else but the unspeaksble miseries of his kind. And I leave CrA- COW with a sick and heavy heart. EDGAR l.. WAKEMAs.