PRESECUTION OF THE JEWS. 109 



chief officers of Rome. The Jews, in addition to this tribute, 

 are required to pay for all the flags used in the horse races 

 in the carnival, and also to furnish money for the prizes which 

 are given; these prizes being as an exemption from the indig- 

 nities to which they were formerly exposed, when they were 

 compelled to run through the Corso, on the first day of the 

 carnival, for the amusement of the people, who assailed them 

 with every kind of offensive missile in the most barbarous 

 manner. So late as to the period of the French dominion, 

 when this ceremony of the humiliation of the Jews was per- 

 formed, the chief Conservator used to place his foot upon the 

 neck of the chief Rabbin, who was obliged to prostrate him- 

 self before him; and then, when the Conservator uttered the 

 word " Andat," he spumed away the Rabbin with a kick. 

 The French abolished the w T hole ceremony, but Pius VII was 

 obliged, on his return, to restore it, though with great reluc- 

 tance; but he caused the ignominious practice of placing the 

 foot upon the Rabbin's neck to be abolished. Recent arrange- 

 ments have also led to the discontinuance of the kick of dis- 

 missal; and when I witnessed the ceremony, it was no longer 

 given. Let us hope that succeeding years will see the whole 

 ceremony abolished, and that the time for the persecution of 

 this devoted race is fast drawing to a close. 



ESTHER. 



I always feel the deepest interest in reading about the 

 Jews. 



And so we ought. Moses, indeed, was permitted to look 

 in the glass of ages when he foretold so minutely what has 

 happened to this people for now above 3200 years the de- 

 struction of their city and their temple their country ravaged 



themselves falling before the sword, the famine, and the 

 pestilence dispirited, persecuted, enslaved driven from 

 their own land, "dispersed among all nations, left to the 

 mercy of a world that every where hated and oppressed them 



shattered in pieces like the wreck of a vessel in a mighty 



10 



