' One of the decisions at which the experts arrived, with only one dissentient, referred to the sale of drink by Jews. Well, we do not like the Jews, that is a fact; and the dislike is reciprocal. But the reason we do not like them is not because of their speculative monotheism, but because of their practical heathenism. To us they are what the relics of the Amorites and Canaanites were to the Hebrews in old times — a debased and demoralised element which is alien to our national life, and a source of indescribable evils to our people. It is not to the Jew as a rejector of Christianity that we object; it is to the Jew as a bitter enemy of Christian emancipation, the vampire of our rural communes, the tempter of our youth, and the centre of the demoralising, corrupting agencies which impair our civilisation. Ask anybody who has lived, if only for a day or two, near our custom-houses, and you will learn that all the smugglers, all the receivers of stolen goods, all the keepers of brandy-shops, are the degenerate descendants of the great Semitic race. If the Jews but obeyed the ten commandments of their Lawgiver, there would be but little objection to them in Russia. But as even Moses found his Jews more than he could manage when his back was turned, it is perhaps not surprising that Russians have much difficulty in managing a people in whose ears the thunders of Sinai have long since grown faint.
'The Pall Mall Gazette recently, in a fit of noble indignation, delivered a very long lecture on the cruelties of Jew-baiting in Russia. It might have had some weight if the writer had not been as inaccurate as he was prejudiced. For instance, Russians were solemnly upbraided for confining the chosen people to " the most ignoble occupations." No doubt. But considering the number of Jewish journalists in Russia, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette does not seem to think much of the dignity of his profession. But Jews are not only journalists with us; they also follow the equally " ignoble" occupations of professors, teachers, authors, lawyers, barristers, doctors, bankers, merchants, to say nothing of those who occupy positions in the Government service!
' An intelligent diplomatist, who has lived a long time in Russia, said to me the other day, when we were discussing this question, " The forbearance of the Russians is wonderful. No one can imagine how much they have suffered at the hands of these Jews. It is strange that these outbreaks have never occurred before." But it is by no means only Russians who find it difficult to love the Jews.
' There is one " ignoble occupation," however, to which the Jews are very much devoted. The Jewish papers declare that no fewer than one hundred thousand Jewish families will be ruined if the Jews are not permitted to keep open these infamous drink-shops which are the curse of the Russians communes. How many hundred thousand honest Russian families, I wonder, have these Jewish brandy-sellers ruined?
'That our objection is solely to the anti-national Jews, not to Jews who become Russians in all but their origin, is proved by the decision of the commission in favour of allowing the Karaite Jews, or " Karaimes," as they are called, and call themselves, in Russia, to sell drink as freely as any other of th«ir Russian fellow-subjects. It is only the Talmudist Jews who are forbidden that privilege.'*
This is considered a fair statement, of what is alleged against the Jews in extenuation of the bad feeling of the peasants towards them. With regard to the bad feeling of holders of landed property it appears that many of them, in borrowing money, find it convenient to do so from Jews, mortgaging estates in security for the loan; and if they do not repay the loan the mortgage is foreclosed; and Jews become the purchasers. Many do so; and the stranger may be ready to ask, And why not?