JEWS IN ENGLAND.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3009, 16 February 1881, Page 4

JEWS IN ENGLAND.

The deliberate discussion of the propriety and expedience of the " Jew baiting," which is just now a popular amusement in certain parts of the German Empire, reveals the existence of a state of feeling which it is almost impossible for the Englishman or Englishwoman of to-day to realise. Jews are to Q-ermany very much what Scotchmen are to England. They come, they see, they conquer. They invade the country at every point; begin their career in a garret, and terminate it in a palace. Many of the most successful merchants, lawyers, and pliysicians in London are of Scotch extraction. Lord Mayor M'Arthur is an Irish Scot. Dr Andrew Clarke is a Scot; so is Mr John Pender, and so are a score of other equally eminent and opulent individuals, whom it is unnecessary to particularise. The Scot has an awkwardly persistent manner of standing in the Briton's sunlight, and of b?ing the foremost to seize the prizes and the different wood things of life. His nationality is quite as clearly defined, and his instinct is quite as aggressive and prehensible, as in the case of the veritable Hebrew; he has fewer amiable qualities by way of compensation ; and he has infinitely less sen*e of humour. Yet Vnglishmen, when they have been hopelessly distanced by the canny aliens from beyond the Tweed, try to live in peace and amity with their rivals, and have no more notion of making the home countries too hot to hold them than they have of repealing the Civil Disabilities Relief Acts. In art, literature, and money-making, the Israelite can heat the Teuton, just as the Scot frequently does the Briton. Frankfort-on-the-Main, the second commercial city in the Fatherland, is far more of a Hebrew capital than Jerusalem. At Bonn, Berlin, Heidelberg, some of the most distinguished professors are of the seed of Abraham. It has always been so, and it appears equally natural to us as that the strenuous stranger from Aberdeen should take the train to London, and secure all that is best worth having. In our hearts we may hate him, but no one has yet thought of resorting here to tho tactics of the Juden-hass.

As for the condition of the chosen people themselves among us, is it not enough to say that we have found their Sion, newly gilt and painted, in the King'sroad, Brighton, and that, wherever they plot and labour in these isles, the Land of Promise opens to them? But, if we do not persecute, because it is not the custom of the country, can it he said that there exis-s in a suppressed state among the English people anything of the sentiment which in Germany is now gratifying itself by over acts of persecution ? In other words, is the prejudice, which has unquestionably existed before now in England against Jews, completely extinefcj? There i 3 no need to go back upon historical instances of this antipathy. Whatever it has been, whatever it is now, there is very little doubt that the feeling of race-hatred is less powerful in England than elsewhere. The Englishman dislikes the ways and habits and manners of foreigners, hut not the personality of the nation, or the foreigner himself. One of the reasons of this is that the true-born Briton is never quite certain of the purity of his own descent. We are the most mixed nation under the sun. Ethnologist? have not quite made up their minds whether we come from the East or the West —whether we are hybrid Hollanders, or whether we are not sprung from the stock of the lost tribes. .Again, there is much more which is really democratic in English life than in any other European society. So long as a man conducts himself well, and has money in his purse, we do not care if his father was a costermonger or a pawnbroker. It is, therefore, natural that we should be an exceptionally tolerant people ; and we may reflect with satisfaction that, during many years past, we have done our best to make the Hebrew gentlemen and ladies who thrive and prosper amongst us as comfortable as circumstances allow. We have specially legislated in their interests. We have made them Cabinet Ministers. We have entrusted to them the t-sk of forming Governments. We have prostrated ourselves before their triumphal car. Lord Beaconsfield has satirised tho flatnosed Franks and pelted the English aristocracy with ridicule. He has not only had fair play from the first; he has lived to receive an amount of homage which has scarcely ever fallen to the lot of an individual. There can be no doubt that his Avatar has much contributed to the esteem in which his compatriots are held in the United Kingdom : and George Eliot would probably not have embodied so much Jewish research in her last novel if her attention had not been fixed by the career of the author of Fndymion.

Still it may be asked —notwithstanding the popularity and even the fascination with which < 'ord Beaconsfield, both by his public achievements and his social accomplishments, has vested the Hebrew character —must it not be admitted that there is a widely-spread prejudice against those of the posterity of King David who have fixed their homes in Great Britain ? A little consideration will show that this question may be answered in tho negative. It is true there are many instances of an invincible repugnance on the part of individual Briton to Jews. But so there is of repugnance to people of a certain type of countenance or of a particular tone of voice or manner, or to special dishes and special colours. The inference, however, would not therefore be legitimate that tho English public was consumed with hatred for persons who squinted or stammered for pork-chops or lamb-cutlets. /'.gain, there are many varioties of Jews among us—from tho comic Hebrew as ho may be seen on the boards of Drury Lane to the sleek, well-mounted, wellbred gentleman who play polo at Hurlingham, and own the best coaches of the Four-in-Tlanrl flub. But then there are jiist as many varieties of Englishmen, and some of them quite as unlovely. We speak occasionally of an Oriental turn of mind, and wo very often say that we detect the barbaric traces of Asiatic influence in individuals, or establishments, of strictly indigenous growth. A taste for ornament is one of the innate and traditional properties of the Israelitish character, and the Jew who proclaims his nationality by a tendency to florid excess is not unknown in English society. But it is a decorative age, and the iloridity of the Hebrew may at any turn bo matched by the Iloridity of tho Briton. Sir Gorgius Midas at homo and abroad is, on the whole much more demonstratively vulgar than Mr Isaac Moses with his fingers covered by diamond rings. Some well-to-do Jews struggle desperately hard to acquire- a social footing, and fail; but a good many well-to-do Englishmen do just the same. These are facts which suggest, tho conclusion that, whenever Jews among us are not as triumphantly successful as they may fancy they have a right to bo, the cause is to be looked for, not in the nationality, but in the individual. The Israelites are far too powerful

a race in London not to be taken everywhere on their own merit, nor can any Briton himself havo fairer play.—World.

Charles Lamb, at the solicitation of a cityacquaintance, was induced to go to a public dinner, but stipulated that the latter was to see him safely Ik me. When the banquet was ovor, Lamb reminded his friend of their agreement. ' But where do you live ?' asked the latter. ' That's your affair,' said Lamb, ' you undertook to see mo home, and I hold you to your barggain.' His friend, not liking to leave Lamb to find his way alone, had no choice but to take a hackney coach, drive to Islington, where he had a vague notion that Lamb resided, and trust to inquiry to discover the house. This he accomplished, but only after some hours had thus been spent, during which Lamb dryly and persistently refused to give the slightest clue or information in aid of his companion.