PERSECUTION OF RUSSIAN JEWS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2327, 10 March 1892, Page 4

PERSECUTION OF RUSSIAN JEWS.

In a periodical published in London, and issued by a Russo-Jewish Committee, called “Darkest Russia,” are told the circumstances of the persecutions, and the alleged causes of the Russian hatred of the Jews. The indictment may be summarised thus: The Jews are usurers. They exploit the peasantry. They deal in intoxicating liquors and encourage drunkenness. They will not follow agriculture. They are Nihilists, and have secret societies. They endeavor to evade the laws. They seek to evade military service. They compete too fiercely in trade. They are Talmudists, and their religion teaches them hatred to Christians. The real fact is that the Jews are hated simply because they are not and will not become members of the Greek Church, and everyone else who persists in remaining outside the pale of Orthodoxy is hated just the same. In proof of this, one has only to observe the persecution that is being directed against the Stundists, Old Believers, Lutherans, and others. In the eyes of this fanatical and bigoted Government all Protestants and Roman Catholics are accursed heretics, whom it is duty of the Orthodox believers to persecute despoil and destroy. In reference to the accusation that the Jews are usurers, “Darkest Russia” asserts that outside the pale of Jewish settlement, where there are no Jews the usuers are all Christians, sometimes noblemen, frequently even clergymen. The ordinary rate of interest charged by these is higher than that charged by the Jews, who compete against one another in their struggle for existence. Usury always exists in a semi-barbarous country like Russia, where there is no proper organisation for credit and where the people are improvident. Usury is only a question of degree. In Russia the ordinary rate of interest on mortgage security is 10 per cont. to 12 \ per cent. Where there is a great risk of loss, or where there is no security (and the Jew may not lend on landed estate), the rate must be high in proportion to the risk. Usury laws existed till 1879 r and these limited the rate to 6 per cent, * but they were found quite impracticable and were repealed, The Jews were originally able to be money-lenders, because they were themselves the only people who had money credit, and it was known that what they borrowed they would certainly pay. In Russia comparatively few Jews now have either money or credit. If they have either, they may become money-lenders in consequence of being practically shut out from pursuits of an honorable kind. In any case, there can be comparatively few. Mr Arnold White in his recent report states that he had tried everywhere to find a Jewish usurer, as he had heard so much of this class, but that he failed in his quest From Wilna comes a strange story —A Jewish merchant of Duksche had two very handsome daughters, who for some time attracted the attention of some rouds in Wilna. The merchant, one Salo Zimmerman, was asked to have the girls baptised, and when he refused one of them disappeared. Zimmerman searched for his child, but without avail, until one day he received an anonymous letter which said the girl was concealed in the house of a woman on the outskirts of the hamlet. Here she was found, chained to the wall of a cellar. The woman, when questioned declared the girl’s father paid her to keep the daughter chained to keep her out of the clutches of the Russians. This story both Zimmerman and his daughter denied, and the latter declared she had been forced into the woman’s house against her will. The father, without further ado was thrust into prison. The girl was baptised, despite her opposition, and will I he married to a Russian shopkeeper in a few days. Her unhappy parent is to bo charged with ill-treating his daughter. i His persecutors will hardly fail to get him

convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. In such a case the fate of the girls can better be imagined than described. Even if the shopkeeper marries one of the girls he will have no difficulty in casting her off when he grows tired of her.