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NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



The Jewess — The Jews. — The English public, in tiieatrical matters 

 as well as in matters of dress, are very much like a flock of sheep. The 

 example which one leading establishment sets is followed by all the rest. 

 Mr. Bunn some two or three months since brought out a splendid spec- 

 tacle at Drury-Lane, called " The Jewess." The thing was a hit — it 

 drew, and in a fortnight afterwards, almost every minor theatre in the 

 metropolis, not excepting the penny aflairs in Shoreditch and other re- 

 spectable neighbourhoods in the suburbs, produced their Jewess. Nothing 

 but the Jewess was talked of in parties — no other term greeted your 

 ears in the streets — the word occurred everlastingly in the public jour- 

 nals ; and if you had the temerity to cast a glance at the dead walls as 

 you passed along the thoroughfares of town, your eye was sure to en- 

 counter the eternal words " The Jewess," in the most gigantic letters 

 which modern typographers have yet committed. The matter, in short, 

 had grown into a nuisance, which is now, however, happily beginning 

 to be abated. In the meantime one cannot help being struck with the 

 anomaly of the favour shown by the British public to the Jews , as exhi- 

 bited on the stage, and the contempt and harshness with which that 

 nation are treated in all the transactions of real life. The imaginary 

 Jewess of Mr. Bunn is idolized : the real Jews whom one meets in the 

 streets are looked on, both by individuals and the legislature, as if they 

 were a class of human beings with whom it were a degradation to hold 

 any kindly intercourse. The indignities heaped on the head of Shak- 

 speare's Shylock by the self-dubbed Christians of liis time, are still, in 

 kind, if not in degree, oflered to the English Jews of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. This ought not to be. It is a reproach which, we hope, will be 

 speedily wiped off our national character. The trite maxim is in every 

 body's lips, that man is not responsible to man for his religious opinions, 

 and yet almost every one practically belies it, in his conduct towards the 

 Jews. Intellect " marches" to little purpose so long as such an ano- 

 maly is suflfercd to exist. 



Taking IT Easy. — In the House of Commons, it is matter of nightly 

 occurrence to see honourable members who were, on the hustings, most 

 prodigal of pledges of " unremitting attention" to their legislative duties, 

 stretched horizontally in the side galleries, wrapped as firmly in the em- 

 braces of Morpheus, as if they had sunk into what Burns, or somebody 

 else, — no matter who - calls " the interminable sleep." In the House of 

 Lords, the notion which the members entertain of their own dignity, 

 usually prevents their resigning themselves to a little balmy slumber. 

 So great, however, are the somnolent tendencies of one of the Right Rev. 

 Prelates who grace the bench of Bishops, that the antagonist disposition 

 faithfully to discharge his legislative functions — supposing, as we are 



M.M.--3. U 



