-a

chants; but the difference is older than | ality was permitted to fulfil were the usethese circumstances, and we should our-ful, albeit lowly, duties of beadle, which selves attribute its continuance to two were actually entrusted to a German, facts, first, that the Jews, separate as certain Benjamin Levy." A man born of they are, can catch the external impress the Sephardim who married into the rival of any civilization, including its hatreds congregation was looked upon much as do not the Sephardim call the Ashkena- a duke's son would be who married a zim "Todesco," that is "Tedesco," the housemaid, as one who, although he epithet by which a Venetian or a Milanese had done nothing unlawful or immoral, describes a German ? - and secondly, that had nevertheless disgraced himself and a Jew in the Mediterranean 'had so much his order. When Jacob Israel Bernal, more sympathy with his entertainers, had great-grandfather of Mr. Bernal Osborne, so much less to conceal or to simulate, that in 1744 proposed to a German Jewess, his he of necessity developed more freely the congregation, though they consented to nobler and more natural side of himself. the union, expressed their strong disapSome of the greatest of modern Jews have probation, and "to discourage for the fu been Germans, but the aristocracy of the ture such ill-advised connections, imposed race lived, as Mr. Disraeli affirms, some- upon Mr. Bernal some rather humiliating times under frightful oppression, on the conditions. Neither the members of the shores of the Mediterranean. Be that as it Beth Din, nor the Hazanim (ministers) may, there is no doubt that being as usual were to be present at the solemnization of exceptional among mankind, the southern the marriage; the bridegroom was not to Jews held themselves to be higher, nobler, be called up to the law in that capacity, purer, in some mysterious way, than the no offerings or mesheberach were to be northern Jews; that the feeling was once made for his health, and no celebration as strong as the pride of birth among the of any kind was to take place in synaTeutons, and that it flashes out even now, gogue. Nous avons changé tout cela." when it has been nominally discarded in | To this day, though the Jews best known England, in synagogue arrangements, and to the outer world the Rothschilds, in books like Mr. Disraeli's "Tancred" Goldsmids, Cohens, Levis-are all Ash-where he, himself by birth one of the kenazim, something of caste, some flavour Sephardim, exalts the Sephardim into an of aristocratic standing, indefinable but aristocracy in the speculator Mirès' at- perceptible, still adheres to the members tack on the house of Rothschild, the of the elder synagogue, and observers preextraordinary pamphlet which we noticed tend that the special look of the oriental at the time, and in which Mirès attributes Jews, a look well rendered in Holman his fall to the hatred of the Ashkenazim | Hunt's "Finding of the Saviour in the for the Sephardim; and in the volume be- Temple," more especially in the boy who fore us, wherein a pride of caste, which is bending over the oldest rabbi, is still its author would probably repudiate, flashes confined to the Sephardim. out now and again in the oddest manner. To-day, says Mr. Picciotto, there is no distinction between the septs, except that they pronounce Hebrew differently, and although they maintain different synagogues, they elect a common committee of management for the entire community, but down to a very late period the mutual dislike was intense. In the reign of Queen Anne "the Portuguese did not allow the Germans to have any share in the management of congregational affairs. It was especially enacted that the latter, who probably were neither very refined nor very cultivated, should not be allowed to hold office in the synagogue, nor vote at meetings, nor be called to the law, nor receive mitzvoth (religious honours), nor make offerings, nor pay imposts. The Germans, in point of fact, were treated as belonging to a lower caste, and the only functions that a member of that nation

It is this fact, the existence of colonies of Jews in England, rather than of a community of English Jews, which explains the puzzle about their names, which so often gives cause for so much rather absurd ridicule. Many of the names supposed to be specially Jewish in this country are not Jewish at all, but Portuguese; and Mr. A. Trollope, when in his new novel he makes his great lawyer say that the name Lopez has a Jewish flavour about it, is talking nonsense, made sense only by accident. The Jews are older than surnames, and the process going on among them is precisely the process which went on some centuries ago among ourselves. Surnames have be come convenient, and they find them consciously, as our fathers found them unconsciously, in the best way they can, sometimes taking the name of a protector as appears to have happened in Portu

gal, where Jews bear names like Lopez, |olic for three centuries, making offerings Villareal, Medina, Gomez, Da Souza, Rodriguez, and the rest; sometimes that of their property, as, we believe, in the case of the D'Aguilars; sometimes that of their trade-sign, as, for example, the Rothschilds; sometimes that of the city they live in, whence Breslauer, De Worms, Perugia, and others; and very frequently that given them at birth altered into an anagram pronounceable by the people they happen to reside among. Thus Manasseh becomes Massena; Moses, Moss; Eli, Ellis; David, Davis, Davies, or Davidson; Benjamin, Benson; and Levi, Levison, Lewis, Louis, Lewison, Lawson, Lever, Lewes; and many other combinations. The object is not to conceal either the race or the faith-though in old days of persecution, that motive may have assisted, and in our days of social ambition certainly does assist-but to supply a distinct defect which the race has only felt in modern Europe, and which it shares with royal families, which, for the same reason, have no proper surnames. We call them, for convenience, Bourbons, Hapsburgs, Guelfs, Hohenzollerns, and Romanoffs, but those distinguishing words are only their surnames because they occasionally use them to describe their ancestral lines. The result of this practice among English Jews is a medley of names from every country in the world, a medley not found either in Germany or Portugal, and of which they will have to rid themselves before a community of distinctively English Jews can be fairly formed.

in the synagogue on their arrival in Great Britain, but he knew the customs of his people better than his critics. The fathers of the Inquisition did not punish "relapse" in the third and fourth generation for nothing, and Mr. Picciotto clearly acknowledges the practice. The Catholic family of Mendes, who accompanied Catherine of Braganza to England, professed themselves Jews on their arrival; hundreds of Austrian families remained Catholics until 1870, and then professed, creating everywhere in Austria a belief that Judaism was becoming propagandist; and Mr. Picciotto tells the following extraordinary story of Sampson Gideon, the Rothschild of 1745, who doubled his fortune by buying stock when the Pretender advanced to Derby. His real name was Sampson de Rehuel Abudiente, Jew of the Sephardim, and founder of the CullingEardley family, an extremely able, satiric, and ambitious man. Of his ability, the best proof is that, though speculator by trade, he could not be tempted into the South-Sea Bubble, and that he obtained a private act of Parliament from Walpole; and of his satire we have sufficient evidence in this little story:-"Some months before the revolution [1745], this enterprising financier had borrowed, to carry out some operation, a sum of £20,000 from Mr. Snow, the banker. When the Pretender was marching on the capital, Mr. Snow wrote to Sampson Gideon in tones alternately piteous and offensive, requesting an immediate return of his adIt is a very odd fact, never, to our vances. Mr. Snow not only really reminds, satisfactorily explained, that wher-quired the money in his bank in this ever the Jews have settled, they have been emergency, but he was afraid of losing it accused of proselytism. They never try altogether. Gideon quietly proceeded to to make converts, and are most unwilling the Bank of England and obtained thereto receive them, and the popular notion, from twenty £1,000 notes, which he rolled which has repeatedly in southern Europe around a bottle of smelling-salts, and forcaused riots, and in England rose once to warded to the dismayed banker." He heights as extravagant as the similar but was, however, ambitious, seeking, it is bebetter-founded feeling about Catholics, lieved, the peerage which was given to his arose, we suspect, from two causes,-one son, Lord Eardley; and in 1754 he rewas the propagandist force of their great signed his membership in the Jewish condogma, and its attraction for a certain gregation. The resignation was, of course, class of thinkers, not as Judaism, but as a accepted, and Abudiente, assuming the form of deism, and the belief of the priest-name of Gideon, declared himself a Chrishood that it must be urged so earnestly tian, and brought up all his children in the by Jews in order to make proselytes; and faith. Nine years after, however, he the other was the habit of the race, when died, and then it was discovered that he exposed to unendurable persecution, of had never ceased to be a Jew, both in professing any faith convenient, and then, heart and faith:when circumstances altered, of "relapsing" into the concealed belief. Mr. Disraeli was accused of exaggeration when he talked of Sidonia's family, most Cath

His executors forwarded a copy of his will to the authorities of the Spanish and Portuguese congregation, with a request that orders might be given for the interment of the de

ceased. The following paragraph was found | peded Nehemiah in rebuilding the Holy in that document: "To my executors-£1,000 City. He never, however, took any step to be paid by them and applied to and for the beyond erasing his name from the lists of use of the Portuguese Synagogue in Bevis the synagogue, and in 1821 he applied for Marks, London, in case I shall be buried in the certificates of birth of his four chilthe Jews' burying-place at Mile End, in the carreira (regular row of graves), with the right dren. They were sent to him, and it apof a guebir (member), and an escaba (or prayer pears from the record that the eldest son, for the dead) said every Kippur." The reply Benjamin, was born on December 21, of the Portuguese elders was brief and digni- 1804, a year earlier than the date given in fied, and to the effect that orders had been Dodd and Debrett, which is December given to the keeper of the burying-ground at 31, 1805. As a rule, however, the Jew Mile End to let the grave be open according who quits the synagogue quits the comto the desire of the deceased, and that his re-munity; and Mr. Picciotto bewails deeply mains would be treated as those of any other the number of Jews who, in England more member. Then Phineas Gomes Serra, a gen

tleman belonging to one of the first families especially, are tempted by social ambition, of the community, came forward and stated or dislike of social pressure, or the beauty that a certain sum offered annually by him in of Gentile maidens, to quit their ancient the name of "Peloni Almoni " -as anony-community and glide into the mass of the mous donors were designated in reality was population. The danger of Judaism, incontributed by the late Sampson Gideon, who deed, it is evident from his book, arises, had thus regularly kept up his payments as first of all, from perfect toleration. member.

This is at least one origin of the belief about Jewish proselytizing, which, never frequent anywhere, has in England been strictly forbidden by the rules of both the Portuguese and the German synagogues. Lord George Gordon never was admitted into the Jewish burial-ground, and much later the Portuguese congregation formally rebuked the German one for allowing two Norwegians to be admitted, contrary to the "express condition" on which Jews were admitted into England -a mistake, it is said—and the German congregation passed strict rules against a similar error. The truth seems to be the Jews care for no converts not descendants of Abraham, but are always ready to receive back persons whose descent, however corrupted, is clear to them. They themselves are almost morbidly bitter against attempts to convert them. The Jewish Chronicle, generally an even-tempered paper, can write of persecutors with much more temperance than of the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews; and Mr. Picciotto, though usually impartial, can hardly keep down his dislike of those who have abandoned the communion. Abudientes or Bernals, Lopezes or Ricardos, they have never done so merely from conviction; and he is lenient only to Isaac d'Israeli, the premier's father, who in fact never quitted the pale, though in 1813 he threw up his seat in the synagogue because the elders were determined to make him an office-bearer against his will. In a most remarkable letter he affirmed that he would not bear this, but denied that he was like Sanballat the Horonite, who im

From The St. James's Magazine. CONVERSATION WITH NAPOLEON AT LONGWOOD.

BEFORE leaving the Briars, Napoleon went to Mr. Balcombe's apartment, and invited the young ladies to Longwood, where he said he would always be happy to see them. We reached Longwood in safety, Napoleon evincing no feeling of any kind that night respecting the change. Next day, however, he seemed irritable, and it was some days before he could reconcile himself to the place. By degrees his irritability wore off; but his anger was aroused when he learned that an order had been given forbidding any person to enter Longwood gates without a pass signed by the admiral: that sentinels were posted all round Longwood; and that Lieutenant (? Captain) Poppleton was to live in the house as his orderly officer. Sir George Cockburn treated him with marked kindness; allowed him to go to a certain distance from Longwood alone, and permitted him to visit any part of the island he thought proper, provided that if he went beyond certain bounds the orderly officer was to attend him. Much about this time a ship arrived from England with despatches, and informed us that the 66th Regiment had embarked for St. Helena. Sir George came to Longwood with the orders he had received from England, and read them to Napoleon and his generals. He also informed Napoleon that General Sir Hudson Lowe was appointed governor of the island, and

had taken his passage on board of H.M.'s | asked Napoleon what he thought of Lord frigate "Phaeton," which was expected to Wellington. "Why," said Napolcon, arrive in about a month's time. At this "Wellington is a good soldier and a brave news Napoleon was greatly chagrined, as man; but he does not possess that expehe appeared to know Sir Hudson Lowe rience which is requisite in a field-marwell. Napoleon remarked to the admiral, shal. Sir Rowland Hill should have been "I hope Sir Hudson Lowe will act in the your commander-in-chief. He is far susame manner as you have done, then I perior to Wellington, and so was General shall be comfortable.” Sir George bowed, Picton. During the latter part of the war and remained silent. Mr. Jones, having | I am convinced that Wellington only fola standing pass from Sir George, often lowed General Hill's directions. Poor came to Longwood. In a conversation old Hill is a general who fought hard and about the war with Bonaparte, the latter well for his country, and he ought to have spoke very highly of some of his own gen- had the honours that have been given to erals, saying that none could exceed them Wellington. The English had several old in their art. Mr. Jones replied, "You officers more experienced in the field and were very lucky to fall in with such clever who were better commanders than Welmen." "Not at all," said Napoleon. lington. I had read an account of Water"My maxim was, never to promote any loo written by an Englishman, from which man unless he deserved it. No matter it appears that Wellington did the sole how humble a man's origin might be, if business himself; but let any man read a he possessed merit or any good qualities true account of the battle, and then he will I always encouraged him, and by expe- see who was really the conqueror. I do rience he promoted himself. To make a not wish to disparage Wellington,- far thorougly good general a man should go from it, but what would have become of regularly through all grades in the army him and his army if Blucher had not come that is, he should rise from the ranks. to his assistance so soon?" Mr. Jones If a man had talent, I developed it. Now remarked that the action must have been the practice in the English army is always dreadful, from the accounts he had read to promote persons of high birth,- money of it. "Yes," replied Napoleon, "it was easily purchasing the commission of a sharp; but if I had taken the advice of lieutenant-colonel, for a man with little Marshal Bertrand and Marshal Ney, I or no military experience; the sons of could have destroyed the English army, noblemen can be captains and majors and afterwards have attacked the Pruswithout ever having had a day's march sians. I was deceived. I thought the with a regiment, while good soldiers who Prussians were Grouchy coming to my have fought for their country and expe- assistance. Had he come as I expected, rienced the fatigues and hardships of war, the allied army would have been annihilatif they happen to be of obscure birth, in ed - we should have taken it en flagrant low circumstances, and to lack wealthy or délit; but Providence turned the scale influential friends, are totally and most against me.” unjustly neglected." Mr. Jones then

THE WARNING SYMPTOMS OF SLEEPLESS- | dications of a condition of nervous irritability NESS. It is of course premature to offer any or mental excitement which may at any moremarks on the "tragedy at Norwich," but ment assume the form of uncontrollable viothere can be no objection to urging very stren-lence. Delirium tremens, traumatic delirium, uously upon hospital surgeons and practition- and the most dangerous forms of mania are ers generally, who are not specially familiar all prone to give this warning token of their with the symptoms of mind and brain disease, presence, and scarcely any other. Without in the imperative necessity of treating "sleep- the least prejudging the case now sub judice, lessness as a warning symptom. A "curious we venture to bespeak the attention of the patient," so described because he does not profession and the public for a matter of daily sleep, should be at once placed under proper importance, unfortunately impressed afresh supervision, for his own sake and the safety of upon the notice of everybody by this terrible those around him. Inability to sleep, remarks lesson in blood. the Lancet, is one of the most significant in

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