GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8022, 8 January 1906, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

THE JEWISH MASSACRES. A recent cable from New York stated that Mr Oscar Strauss, who is raising a million dollars in America for the relief of the Jews, had declared the Russian massacres to bo ill© worst misfortune the raco had experienced Bince Titus sacked Jerusalem. (The sack of Jerusalem, 70 i,,t>., by Titus, is one of the most torrible tragedies in history. Ho began the siege of Jerusalem at Easter, and mot -with such a fiorce resistance to his assaults that ho resolved to. reduco the place by famine, and built a strong -wall round'; tho city. The oity was crowded—multi. lud.s having come in from the surround, iiig country for the Feast of the Unleavened Broad—and before long the sufrenng boca-me awful, the people dying in such numbers that burial was impossible. Numbers of wretches stole out at night to look,for food, and were captured j>V the Romans, and if they had defended .themselves, wore scourged tortured and crucified. Sometimes as many as 500 or more of these crucified people were displayed to the view of the besieged, Trith a view to striking terror into their hearts. This cruelty, however, had just tie opposite effect. It was reported one day that the deserters. of whom there were a good number, had concealed their gold >by swallowing it, and that night 2000 of these people are said to have been killed and disem•bowelled by the fierce Syrian and Arabian allies of the Romans. According to a deserter -well qualified to know, from April 14th to July Ist, 115,880 corpses were buried at the public charge cxr thrown over the walls. In addition, numbers must have been buried privately. Other desertera stated that 600,000 of the poorer people perished. In July tho attack was renewed. In the following month the Romans gained the outer court of the" temple, and on the night of the 10th a soldier flung a fire-brand into an annexe, and soon the whole structure was in flames. Titus wished to preserve the building, but onoe it was on fire he could do nothing. The slaughter was terrible. Multitudes of defenceless people had been told to go to the temple, ivhere God would display hn almighty power to save his people, and the Roman legionaries slew them in-di.-criminately. The .soldiers had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on i tho work of extermination. At last only ' one cloister remained, where 6000 dofenceless people had taken refuge. The soldiers set fire to it, and every soul perished. There remained the upper oity. Titus offered to spare the lives of the defenders on condition of instant surrender, but the Jewish lenders demanded to depart with their wires and children into the wilderness. Titus then vowed the unsparing extermination of the whole people. The attack was made on September 7th, and the resistance was feeble. The soldiers slew the inhabitants until they wo weary, and until in some places the flames of the burning buildings were quenched by blood. Of those that remained, the old and infirm, and the leaders, were put to dsath; the rest became captives, nnd thousands of them died in gladiatorial combats. Josephus estimates that 1,100,000 p?ople were killed in the siege, and that 97,000 were taken prisoners, and that in the whole war 1,356,400 were killed and 101,700 taken prisoners. Josephus, "however, is not a reliable authority, and iMihnan, the historian of tho Jews, is inclined to regard these figures afl exaggerated.)

SECONDARY EDUCATION. The middle-class voter, if he values his children's chances in life, will henceforth have a keen eye on the Board of Education, ibotth on the distinguished men who represent it in the Houses of Parliament and at public ftmotione and on the permanent secretary who pulls the strings. ... The one definite achievement of the Board of Education since lit has been under the Presidency of' Lord Londonderry flias been to get rid of the one member of its staff who war, universally admitted to be master of the subject.—" iMorninz Poet."