THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1882. PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2597, 3 August 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1882. PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

The public meeting held last night at the Oddfellows’ Hall was, as might have been expected, a most unanimous one. All shades of religious opinion were represented on the platform, and all the speakers united in raising their voices against the inhuman manner in which the Jews have been treated by the inhabitants of “ Holy Ruse la.” The only gentleman who travelled at all out of the beaten track was Mr. Twentyman, who held that these persecutions were part, if we may be allowed to say so without irreverence, of the Divine programme that is ultimately to end in the return of the chosen race to the Holy Land. Although people in general will hardly care to agree with Mr. Twentyman on the necessity of these persecutions for the attainment of prophecy, yet all will quite sympathise with that gentleman in his expressions of horror at the events alluded to. Looking at the matter from a more practical standpoint, we fancy that the public will realise that the cause of the tremendous crime which has been committed is the utter want of education to be found in the masses of the Russian peasantry and poorer town-folk.

The deeper the degradation of a populace, the more terrible and ghastly are its outbreaks The frightful cruelties committed in the early days of the Norman Conquest, when the serfs rose'against their masters, the acts done during the various peasant risings in Germany and France, all show that the more people are neglected and trampled on, when they break from control the more hideous are their passions shown to be. The scenes that take place in Ireland at the present day show'’how slow is the process of popular education. Students of Irish history, when recalling the chronic state of discord in which that country has been for centuries, will recognise that the present outrages, bad as they are, are not so frightful as those that wore committed a century and a half ago. Education has been slowly permeating the masses there, and their passions when they break loose do not quite go the lengths they used to in days gone by. In so far there is a gleam of hope in the present situation, bad enough as it is in all conscience. But the bulk of the Russian peasantry are as yet practically in the lowest depths of degradation. Peter the Great managed to veneer the upper classes, and that was about all. He seized forcibly upon the male portion of them and cut oil their beards. By example and otherwise he endeavoured to raise them in the social scale. But, after all, the savage broke out in his own parson at frequent intervals. The instructor himself was but half reclaimed. Even his iron will, however, shrank from attempting to do anything with the Russian masses, if indeed he ever thought such a step politically advisable. But, as time wont on, the softening influences of civilisation crept in from the westward, and it was felt by the late Emperor, who was no doubt as well meaning and humane a man as a despot hedged in by terrible precedents can well be, that the system of serfdom was an anomaly in the nineteenth century, and ho determined on the hardy step of liberation. This work will be his claim

on tho admiration of posterity ; but he does not appear to have seconded this first step by the measures which ought naturally to have flowed from it. The liberated serfs, although their political status was improved, were still, in reality, almost as degraded as when Novgorod, and not Moscow, was the capital of the Empire. No general plan of education on a large and enlightened basis was carried out. “If you scratch a Russian you will find a Tartar,” has been said even of the more educated classes. Certainly the wilder nature of the nomad forms part and parcel of that of those on the lower rungs of the social ladder. And a carelessness of human life, an insensibility and callousness to human pain, form part of your true savage. Whether the Jews in Russia have given cause of grievance to their fellowcountrymen is a matter about which a great deal has been said of late. We have heard of their trade exclusiveness, and other complaints have been made against them. But it is almost impossible, with the contradictory evidence before us, to coma to a satisfactory conclusion on the question. It is probably their general wealth and wellbeing that has raised the envy of the less educated men amongst whom they have been living. Hence this burst of feeling against them, and, once the passions of their adversaries hare been let loose, the terrible lengths to which the outbreak has gone followed as surely as night to day. And as we hardly blame, and certainly are not astonished at, the atrocities committed by South Sea Islanders, so thinking men will not wonder at the result of the catastrophe. But as regards the Russian Government the matter is altogether different. It is imposed of men who hare realised all the advantages of European civilisation. The standard of the education of the young in the circles of Russian nobility is a high one. Tutors of all nations are brought from far and wide to teach them languages and the higher branches of science and political economy. There can be no excuse for such men winking at the atrocities committed by the lately liberated serfs. The commonest dictates of humanity, let alone higher considerations, should have determined them at once to put down a rising which was barbarous and impolitic, which was a disgrace to a great empire, and would causa a thrill of horror sod shame

.l£ jean through the *who!o of the civilised world. .'Nothin# that cun he said can bo too strong to describe the universal dismast which 1 the apathy of the Russian Goverpnifent has raised. Its action in this matter will have most seriouslyimpaired* the moral prestige of that go* vernment. -|i will be a new argument to the Nihilists that a system which can tolerate snch atrocities is not worthy of life.

The resolutions passed last night will be a drop in the general backet of indignation. We cannot hold with the gushing remark of the Rev. C. Fraser, that our speaking out on the subject “ will let the Russians see that the human raco from one end of the world to the other protested against the atrocities,” because we fancy these people will not trouble their heads in the slightest about our existence. The passing of these resolutions is rather a duty we owe to ourselves. The practical part of our sympathy, in the shape of hard coin raised to relieve the sufferers, will be the form into which it is most desirable that onr well wishes should fall. Our cash is as good as that from any other part of the world, and a handsome contribution will show that we really do, heartily and sincerely, pity the poor wretches who have been so cruelly ill used. No more deserving case for the exercise of self-denying charity has ever been before the Christchurch public.