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- BRUTAL PERSECUTION OF JEWS.
(Dublin Weekly Freeman.)
" Principalities, No. 1,'MB jiot a very suggestive
title. -Nevertheless th«seWord»cover
a most sensational blue book of 360 pages,
containing a correspondence-extending over
just:;ten years./ This;eorreapondence . wa»
carried on between ;» eeore sr .two iof our.
consuls in theiEastand successive authorities
in oar Foreign Office, aid the subject which
"engaged. »o,:mnch, attention was the .-lavage
' treatment of.Jewii -in .Servia and Roumanian
tinder * fChrtrtiiniiflpvernment.Ite jstprjj
of -the Jejra U the most, wopderful in. the]
hiawiy of jnim—-it'-is dne long-relation' ofc
persecution and indomitable resi»^„ •
acts which must have crushed rtU^
chosen people. In every country -
the globe, save our own, the Israelite hJt!° E
tortured; and the latest d 6velopm e>?
Christian barbarity towards the desemj. .
of men who walked with God will heTl
with the liveliest feelings of sympathv 11
indignation. The story ia pretty well AC
ated through 614 liters, with tWrT
closures, memoranda, and telegrams • but B
shall relate it as clearly as we can. '
About ten years ago 20,000 Jew f onniI
themselves wandering in the Btreets of J aB -
houseless and hunted. The Minister of th
Interior, one Bratiano, raking up obsolete
laws, addressed a circular to the prefect
ordering the immediate ejectment of all J er
from fatms, houses, inns nnd villages ami
thus by a stroke of the pen ruined the pros
pects of 20,000 human beings. The direc.
tion was carried out only too well. In a f 8 '
days 300 families were ruined; scores of Je^
and Jewesses were flung into chains ; others
were pursued like wild auimals through the
streets; under pretence of vagrancy the
Minister seized a number of Jews, without;
distinction of age or condition, put them into
irons, and with unheard-of brutality trans,
ported tham in gangs across the Danube,
These wretched creatures were followed on
the one side by a howling mob of savages, and
on the other by the hideous lamentations of
their bereaved wives and daughters. Fears
of a general maBsacre were entertained, and
in the last resort the Chief Rabbi telegraphed
to Lord Stanley, begging the protection of
the English Consulate at Jassy. Prinoa
Michael, the Christian ruler of Christian
Servia, was then communicated with,
and our representative found him ei.
ceedingly polite and very eVaBive. Prince
Charles of Roumania was equally amiable
and equally useless. It was pleaded that
what had been done hnd been done oo
hygienic principles, and that an outbreak of
cholera had induced something like a banishment
of the Jews, and hen^e some little
irregularities. The fact was, that there were
single rooms in which ten families were
huddled in filth which no pen could desoribe;
that these unhappy beings were literally
chained together and whipped along the roads
to the frontier; that several of them died on
the march, and in one caBe a corpse had been
trailed along by the living prisoner, who could
not rid himself of his terrible companion, and
who dare not lie down on the road. Prince
Charles admitted that the circular of
Bratiano was " a mistake j" though it m
plain that had the ruffian been flayedalive
it would have been less than his desert, it
this time, as if matters were not horrible
enough, an anti-Jewish committee issued
proclamations calling upon the Christians to
rise en masse against the Jews. The English,
Russian, and Austrian Cjnsuls waited oi^
Bratiano, who assured them that he only intended
to banish the filthy and idle, and that
any errors which had been committed would
be rectified, and new instructions issued. He
left Jassy next day, having taken no steps
whatever to put an end to the persecution.
When he left, the Christian leaders harangued
the mobs, telling them that the Jem had
destroyed trade, had accumulated money,
that that money ought to be their's,and
that it remained with them to take it. As
if to aid this spirit of robbery, Bratiano addressed
the Mayor of Jassy, telling him to
overhaul all the accounts of the Jewish institutions,
to compel all the children in hi;
jurisdiction (including Jews) to attend the
State schools, and to fine the parents of nonattending
children. The last sentence might
have been written by Cromwell—"Weakness
and inactivity in this matter would
not only be a breach of duty, but a^crime
against posterity and against ' Romanism.
It is quite clear from our consuls' letters that
the whole cause of the persecution was commercial
jealousy, and its purpose the extortion
of money. There was nothing in the Roumanian
Constitution to justify the treatment of
the Jews aB outlaws; and the reply of Prince
Michael of Servia to the representations of
Lord Stanlev sufficiently indicate that petty
potentate's notions as to the value of unwritten
law. "Ask Lord Stanley (said he)
how long Jews have been admisBiole to the
House of Commons ?" All this happened
in April and M»y, 1^7. .
In July, Consul Ward, writing from
Galatz, tells a terrible story. PrefeciBescano
refused to treat the Jews according to tie
wishes of Bratiano. He was dismissed wim
some others, and the vacant place gmn M
men of well-known views. A batch of ten
Jews arrived at Galatz from Jassy. 1WJ
were put in a boat to be carried to the> otter
side of the Danube under the eyes of MoWo-
Wallachian soldiers. On reaciung a AMsunken
island, all mud, reeds, and water, tw
ten unfortunates were forced out of the BMJ
One of the ten was drowned in the mud; w»
other nine succeeded in attracting, the atten
tion of some Turkish soldiers, who, notB^g
Christians, sent off a boat, rescued them, MO
fed them; but thought proper to return toeB
to Galatz. Bratiano'a men were not to »
defeated. They re,embarked the rnne JeM
and carried them again to the half-subme^
island, from which they werp. rescuea ^
by a Turkish but * ^different guard, u""
more they were kuv back to — - G^^wdcn /n,j«Hia
reaching the river!? edge, the
soldiers PMitiyely ;rafused to .aUowibem »
land. - The: Turks were -but ttiwe. w
unarmed, and the'ObOstians * butil
into the, water, ;with bayoneted .
of, mnskets. ; *Twp, Jews seized
iingiboat, andithe^Tork?.,taking ft le«««w
.the Christian!, shoved- themfofi^ '
,weee;lo*t.., The otl?er*
The

I TnrkB the Jews, and the foreign consuls.
| td Bo the matter ended.

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