The Fourteenth ; or, the Ugly Man. [MARCH 



room. " Your razors are come, sir." " Very well," said Ij " then let 

 me have some hot water, for I must dress directly." 



I hobbled like Vulcan to his Venus. She is a splendid creature, and 

 writes poetry so intelligibly, that you would hardly know it from prose. 

 She possesses great originality of taste ; for she does not think me at all 

 too ugly for a German tale. It is a maxim of hers that mediocrity 

 even in ugliness is despicable. We are to be married on the First of 

 April the title of her next romance. Letty, who has a notion of litera- 

 ture, goes with us into the country. Reader, whosoever you are, let this 

 be at once your affliction and your balm -that you are less happy and 

 less ugly than I am. B. 



THE EXISTING DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS IN THE BRITISH 



EMPIRE. 



IN the year 1753 the ministry gave their sanction to a bill enabling 

 all foreign Jews, settling in England, to obtain letters of naturalization ; 

 the previous obstruction having been the necessity of their receiving the 

 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The bill passed ; but the public feel- 

 ing was against it ; circumstances raised this feeling into open violence, 

 the ministry shrunk from resisting the national impulse, and the bill was 

 speedily repealed. Since that period no effective effort has been made 

 to influence the legislature on the subject of the Jews. They remain 

 exposed to formidable civil disabilities. In the first place, the usage of 

 the corporation of London withholds from Jews the freedom of the city, 

 and thus prevents them from exercising retail trades within its limits. 

 And this, though but a local injury, yet becomes of the highest impor- 

 tance, when we recollect the magnitude of London, its influence on the 

 country, and its being the chief residence of the British Jews. 



The great general impediment to the Jewish possession of the rights 

 of citizenship in the British islands, is the oath of abjuration, which, in 

 denying the supremacy of any foreign potentate over England, pledges 

 the taker of the oath, " on the faith of a Christian !" The taking of this 

 oath, and of the oath of allegiance, on the holy evangelists, alike renders 

 it obnoxious to the Jew. The oath of abjuration, containing the allusion 

 to " the faith of a Christian," of course cannot be taken by a conscientious 

 Jew ; and by this impediment he is precluded from sitting in parlia- 

 ment ; his vote may be refused at elections ; he cannot practise at the 

 bar as either barrister, attorney, or notary ; he cannot even act as school- 

 master or constable. An annual Indemnity Bill may protect him against 

 penalties, as it did the dissenters before the repeal of the Test Act ; but 

 in all instances, where the oath must be taken before the office is assumed, 

 it obviously acts as a direct disqualification. Another, though minor, 

 disqualification arises from the 13th and 14th of Charles II., requiring 

 persons who teach in private houses to have a license from the bishop of 

 the diocese. Protestant dissenters and papists were relieved from this 

 statute by the 31st of George III. Jews are still liable to it ; and cases 

 might easily arise in which it would form an obstruction. 



It is a striking circumstance, that the repeal of the Test and Corpora- 

 tion Acts, by 9th George IV., should have actually placed the Jew in a 

 worse condition than he was before. Until the year 1828, he might, like other 

 non-conformists, have been protected by the annual act of Indemnity, 

 in all cases where the oath of abjuration was not to be taken until after the 

 assumption of the office. But the declaration which was substituted for the 



