not allow me to describe, at least not at present; so I pass on to more general subjects before bringing this article to a close.
The total number of Jews at present domiciled in England is not known even to themselves. The best guess that can be made is by taking the number of burials during the year, which the rabbi can always ascertain, and assuming the mortality to be the same as among their Gentile neighbours, an idea can be obtained of the actual number of the living which approximates to the truth. Computed in this way, we find we have something less than 30,000 Jews resident in England, by far the largest portion of whom reside in London. It is by no means the case that the Jewish population remains the same; numbers are constantly leaving for our colonies, for America and California, wherever, in short, an opening appears for speculation and money-making, and their places here are supplied by fresh arrivals from abroad, especially, I believe, from Poland, where they have increased and multiplied greatly since the time when King Casimir, at the intercession of a favourite Jewess named Esther, gave them an asylum and protection against the dreadful persecutions to which they were subjected everywhere else on the continent, during the period when it was being almost depopulated by that fearful scourge the Black Death.
It may appear strange, considering the perfect freedom they enjoy in this country, that they do not all of them leave Rome and other Italian cities, where they are treated with contumely, and, as a rule, are miserably poor, and come over here; but the fact is the Jews in this country, as a body, are in anything but flourishing circumstances, and this heightens the credit due to them for the extensive charity they exercise towards each other. They have charities for assisting the aged and destitute, a hospital for their sick, for educating, clothing, and apprenticing poor boys, for giving marriage portions of from 60l. to 80l. to poor fatherless girls, and for sundry other purposes.
As regards the state of education among them, I find in a recent report of the education commissioners, that there were 3204 children attending their schools, and Dr. Adler, the present chief Rabbi, who has taken great interest in the subject of education both abroad and at home, states, in his answer to their questions, that there are few Jewish children who can neither read nor write; still he is not satisfied with the progress they make in the schools in the acquisition of general knowledge. The chief reason he assigns is that “it is incumbent upon the Israelite to know at least so much of the Hebrew language as to read the prayers and to understand the Pentateuch in the original,” which, of course, occupies a considerable portion of the time available for educational purposes. The principal institution for the education of Jewish children is situated in Bell Lane, Spitalfields, which is at present attended by 1800 children of both sexes. This school, and the other schools of a similar kind, are under government inspection, and participate in the parliamentary educational grants. There is also a Jews’ college and a school in connection with it, established through the exertions of Dr. Adler, chiefly for the purpose of training up men qualified to serve in the synagogue, and to become masters of schools. To this college a library has recently been added by Mr. L. M. Rothschild, which will, no doubt, form a nucleus for future contributions of a similar kind. It is not here, however, that persons desirous of consulting the rarest Hebrew works are likely to find them. Three quarters of a century ago, Solomon da Costa sent to the trustees of the British Museum nearly two hundred manuscript volumes, in Hebrew, which he had bought; they had been originally intended as a present from the Jews to Charles II., but, from some cause, they were not presented to him, though they were richly bound and marked with his cypher; since that time numerous additions have been made to this gift by purchase and otherwise.
The recipients of the benefits conferred by their charitable institutions, must be Jews, no Christian being eligible; and it is not surprising that these should be excluded from participation, although they do not themselves make any distinction in the applicants for admission to most of their charities; for example, the daughter of a Jew born in any town in the kingdom would be eligible for one of the marriage portions distributed in that town, if her character were such as to entitle her to be a candidate; and I might say the same of the candidates for admission to our endowed schools, which are open to the children of Jews as freely as to those of the Christians. But most of the Jewish charitable institutions have been founded by combination among the poor, or by one who was himself originally poor, and who knew the wants of his brethren, and the inadequacy of such institutions as existed among them to meet their wants. The offerings at the different synagogues during the year amount to a considerable sum. which is disbursed in weekly doles, under the superintendence of a board of guardians, among the most needy members of the congregation. The sum expended in private charity among their poor brethren by those few members of the community who have attained enormous wealth is, as it ought to be, very large; and it does not detract from the credit due to them on this account to say that they confine it principally, or almost entirely, to Jews, since the majority of those who require relief are to them more completely foreigners than the poor and miserable inhabitants of the courts in the vicinity of their own dwellings.
I do not propose to discuss here the question whether those who opposed the admission of Jews to Parliament were right or wrong in their arguments. Of course a Jew is not eligible for a seat in the Legislature because he is a Jew, for that would be tantamount to saying that a Pole or a Frenchman or a German is so, but on the ground that he is born on British soil. In the case of such men as Salomons and Rothschild the appellation Jew indicates a religious rather than a nationalistic distinction between them and the other inhabitants of this kingdom. In a catechism for the instruction of the Jewish youth, compiled by one of their principal teachers, whose name is not altogether unfamiliar in this country—Rabbi Ascher—the following question and answer occurs:
