IMMIGRATION. 433 



That the Hebrews as a race have survived at all is a tribute to their 

 splendid vitality. Not least wonderful is the fact that they have 

 developed a common language in spite of their widely scattered dis- 

 tribution, among half a hundred alien peoples. This language, called 

 Yiddish, is a corrupt German, modified by the addition of Polish and 

 Hebrew words and suffixes. By means of this language expressed in 

 Hebrew characters, and read from right to left, the Jewish people have 

 preserved an extensive literature, mostly historical and religious in 

 tone. 



The persecutions endured by the Hebrew in the past were exceeded 

 in severity by the comparatively recent anti-Semitic outbreaks in Eussia 

 and Eoumania, and in the consideration of the Hebrew immigrant we 

 are chiefly concerned with Eussian, Eoumanian or Galician Jews. Ger- 

 man Jews formed a part of the great German exodus of the eighties, 

 but to-day they, as well as the Hungarian Jews, are seldom seen among 

 the immigrants. 



The Jews moved eastward from western Germany and the Ehine 

 valley under stress of persecution of the middle ages. They were 

 welcomed by the kings of Bohemia and Poland and grew in numbers 

 and prosperity in those countries until Bohemia came under the do- 

 minion of the House of Hapsburg, and Poland was divided between 

 Eussia, Prussia and Austria. Since the partition of Poland, the Jews 

 have suffered, as well as the Catholics of Lithuania and Poland, from 

 the religious enmity of the Eussians. During the reign of Czar Alex- 

 ander II., the stringency of oppressive anti-Semitic measures in Eussia 

 was relaxed, and the condition of the Jews in Eussia was much im- 

 proved. The assassination of the good Czar Alexander II., an event 

 entirely unconnected with the Jews, was followed by terrible anti- 

 Semitic outbreaks in southern Eussia, and by the tyrannical enactments 

 known as the May laws of 1882. These laws provided that the Jews, 

 who hitherto were permitted to live anywhere within the Jewish pale, 

 which comprised a territory of over 300,000 square miles, were now 

 forced to prove that they possessed their right of residence previous to 

 1882, or, in default of such proof, to move into the towns. Many Jews, 

 owing to the relaxation of the laws under Alexander II., had established 

 themselves without the pale, and these now were forced back to add to 

 the confusion and misery of the inhabitants of the towns. Within 

 eighteen months of the enactment of the ' May Laws ' the population 

 of the little town of Tchernigov increased from 5,000 to 20,000 souls, 

 and this terrible overcrowding was as marked in nearly all other towns 

 within the Jewish pale. The econoniic pressure in the towns, the con- 

 sequent hopeless competition for existence produced by these edicts, 

 can be understood, and conditions grew worse as the population in- 

 creased. 



VOL. lxv. — 28. 



