The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-04-16
JEWISH QUESTIONS IN vIENN

V
 Some years ago I chanced to be in Vi- enna when one of those periodic out bursts of feeling against the Jews oc- cured. There had been sinister ru- mors in the air for days before; care fully yelled warnings in the nswspa- pers, and, what was still more signifi- cant, declarations that the power of the Anti-Semite party was on the wane. There were unmistakab1e signs of un- easiness too, In the Jewish quarter. The people no longer fingered in the streets when their business was done, but hurried into their houses and care fully barred the doors. Evidently they were bent on stunning intercourse with strangers. Nor was 1t thus only with the Jews of the poorer class; the mem bers of the Haute Finance, although they drove In the Prater and appeared at the opera as usual, wore a con- strained air; there was an alertness in their aspect, as if they were resolved not to be taken unawares, no matter what might happen. They were living, as they knew, on a volcano.
 Meanwhile the world looked on with the most consummate indifference At length, about nine o'clock one winter evening, I noticed some fifty men hur- rying along the Ring towards the Jew ish quarter So far as an outsider could judge, they had no leader, but acted together under some common i'm pulse. The crowd increased rapidly as more strong, and a very odd crowd 1t was-so terribly in earnest The rough element was there, of course, ragged and hungry-looking, and there were numbers of workingmen; but there were many there, too, whose costly fur lined coats showed clearly that, what ever were their grievances, poverty was not one of them. Side by side were mo- hles and artisans, priests and soldiers, lawyers, traders, ioafers, all differences of caste and cult forgotten for the mo- ment. When I asked what was the meaning of the tumult: "Oh it was only an Anti-Semite demonstration" :" I was told, with a contemptuous shrug, as if Jew-baiting was something that offended against the canons of taste rather than those of morality. They who spoke thus are kindly natured peo- pie, yet they stood aside with cynical nonchalance while a cowardly outrage was being committed. "t is no duty of ours to take up arms for the Jews" " they declared. The disorder increased, and at length troops were sent, though somewhat late in the day, to- defend the attacked. The next morning all was quiet again. A certain amount of dam- age had been done-women and chill dren frightened, some few men injured, and much property destroyed-but the fact seemed to excite little attention. was only Judenhetze, and the world agreed that it would be absurd to take Judenhetze seriously. One might have thought to hear the way men talked that We had suddenly been translated back to mediaeval days. Not that any one expressed open ap- proval Of the excesses of the mob; on the contrary, the newspapers without exception condemned them, and all off, cial personages denounced them as a discredit to the empire. But even those who spoke most severely of that night attack had not a word of sympathy for the Jews.
 That was years ago, but the Anti Semitic feeling in Vienna is even more bitter now than 1t was then, while the power of the Anti-Semites as a party is infinitely stronger. In these latter days the Statthaiter of Lower Austria has been openly insulted because he was