The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-10-22

than 2,OO0,0O0; Germany with 6OO.-
 900, and the British Empire with
 100000, are the other important
 home1ands of this scattered nation.
 Russia, however, today might be
 looked upon as the true fatherIand
 of the Jewish people as the great
 body of them live there. This comes
 primarily from the cause that the
 Slavs, more especially the Russian
 Slavs, have always been the most toll
 erant of peoples in matters of re- Hgton. The Russian Church, properly speaking, is not a missionary church. That a Russian should be a member of the Russian branch of the Eastern
 Orthodox Church, is regarded al- most as 8 law of nature in MuscoVy while the Russian feels that it is just as natural and fitting that a Tartar should be a Mohammedan, and that a Jew should follow the Mosaic creed
 ''It is true that most of the Jews were originally Polish subjects, and, it is said, that colonies of them lived in the basin of the Volga and the Crimea 500 years before the birth of Christ. Through the years of their bittereSt persecution, the rule of the Poles over the Jews was a light and thousands of them passed to this country.i Thus, with Poland, Russia acquired the greater part of her Jew ish subjects.
 The TEar's Jewish subjects are confined, by law. to a definite part oe the empire, known as the Jewish Pale of Settlement. This is an irregular belt of territory, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea The Pale in c1udest Poland. Lithuania, White Rus sia, part of Little Russia, and regions in the Caucasus. A belt ofeland about 30 miles wide along the international boundary is also exempt. The Pale proper, wherein nearly all of the Rus sian Jews dwell, comprises the entire | territory of Russian Poland, and the 1 governments of KovnO, Vitebsk, Wilma, 1 Mohilev. Volhynia, Grodno, Minsk, ] Chernigoof, Po1taya, Kief, Pololia, 1 Bessarabia, Emerson, Ekatertnoslav, l and Taurida. Kovno, Minsk, MOhileV | and VoIhynia are the most thickly 1 settled by Jews, who, in these gov ernments, constitute about two-thirds | of the entire population. Some Jews i were settled as agricu1turists upon the , southern Steppe, and, despite the !. strict law, wealthy members of the i nation are found in business in Pet rograd and Moscow. All disabilities which attach to Jewish birth in Rus sia, gall away with the conversion ond of one of the race to Orthodoxy, but i such conversions seldom 7 take place. This curtailment of the | freedom of the Jewish subjects is not i a matter of religious persecution, but rather an expressi oh of the Russian g ] dread of the superior business ability of the Jew.
 There are, however. certain classes of. Jews allowed by the law to dwell . without the pale. These are students in educational institutions, merchants of the first guild, professional persons and skilled artisans, and such as have served 25 years in the army Mem bers of these classes, nevertheless, must obtain special permission to en- joy their rights under the law No Jew is eligible to government ohice, unless he becoming a convert to Orth- odoxy.
 ..The Jews are taxed more highly than other citizens of Russia Their is of a qualified kind, for the law states that Jews are aliens, whose social rights are. regulated by special ordinances. Taxes on kosher meat, on candles for use in the synagogues, on skull caps, legacy taxes and special taxes upon their business are taken by the state. There are a host of other special regula,- tions The Russian Jews, on their side, are organized for their protec- ton, with. headquarters at Warsaw In spite of difficulties, however, the Jews of Russia take a, prominent part In the country's commerce, and eXer- else powerful influence of wealth
 Up to Oct IS. subscribers to the third German war loan had paid into the Treasury S206725O.o0O This is