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extreme regret at losing the services of so capable a worker as the Rev. M. Hyamson, B.A., L.L.B., congratulate him and the community on his appointment as Dayan, and wish him every success in his new sphere of labour." His place as Secretary was filled by the provisional appointment of Mr. Isaac Goldston, who the following year was elected permanently to the post.
Immediately after the High Festivals of 1902, the Board of Management took steps to fill the post vacated by Mr. Hyamson. Advertisements inviting applicants for the office were inserted not only in the English but in the Continental Jewish press. This course had been dictated by a feeling which had for a considerable time past been growing in the community that the Ministers trained at Jews' College fell short of the requisite standard of efficiency, and that a foreign trained Rabbi was better qualified to direct, the religious life of a Congregation. As a result of this wide-spread advertising, applications were received not only from all parts of the United Kingdom, but from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Italy, Holland and the United States. After due consideration of the credentials and qualifications of the applicants, it was decided to recommend the applications of the following four gentlemen: Rev. J. Abelson, B.A., Rev. J. Harris, Rev. W. Levin, and Rabbi Moses Hofmann of Frankfurt-on-the-Maine. After having personally interviewed these gentlemen, and heard them conduct a trial service, the Board of Management decided to recommend Rabbi Hofmann as the sole candidate. The action of the Board of Management created strong disapproval in the Congregation, and on the initiative of Mr. H. H. Hyams and Mr. A. H. Woolf, a requisition, signed by 77 members, was presented to the Board, requesting the calling of a general meeting to decide whether only one or not less than two candidates should be submitted for election. The meeting was held on Sunday, March 15th, and after a heated debate it was resolved by 81 votes to 35 that not less than two candidates were to be put forward for the seat-holders themselves to elect their Minister. As a result of this vote, one of the Wardens and eight members of the Board of Management resigned. Two months later, at the general election, the contest for seats on the Board was fought with unusual keenness, though it is right to add without bitterness or passion. For the ten seats on the Board there were twenty-four candidates. Messrs. J. Birn and P. Josephs were once more elected Wardens. The Congregations as a whole was swayed by two dominating considerations, the consideration on the one hand that the qualifications of English trained Ministers were below the requisite level, and the consideration on the other hand that an unmerited injustice was being done to an institution like Jews' College, which for two generations had made the community its debtor by furnishing nearly every pulpit in the British Empire with an incumbent, a consideration which was furthermore accentuated by the view that the functions of an English Minister could only be adequately discharged by one of English education and experience. The contest was eventually brought to a decisive issue at a general meeting of the seat-holders held on Tuesday, July 28th, 1903, when the Rev. D. Wasserzug was elected by the narrow margin of one vote, 87 votes being cast in his favour against 86 for Rabbi M. Hofmann.
The continuous stream of migration to the North-western district, which has marked the course of Jewish life in North London for the last
