lately, tolerably endurable to a people that has no recent memories of independence. As long as they retained their faith they were shut out from the court, from office, and from society; but as contractors, merchants, tradesmen, money-lenders, middlemen, and smugglers, they have been able to do a great deal of profitable business. They were trusted and employed by the police during the unsuccessful Polish rising of 1864-65; and now and again some of the brighter of them, such as Jessy Helfman and Aaron Zundelevitch have sympathised with the plans of the Nihilists, and have worked with Russians for reforms, as the more ardent Russians conceive them. It is almost needless to add, that in a country like Russia it has always been possible to evade the laws restraining Jewish industry or settlement by bribing officials.
Now the conditions just described are precisely those which are most favourable to an increase of population. Given security to life, limb, and property, which there has been till very lately, the power to enjoy wealth being limited, while its value as a safeguard is enhanced, and all the checks of self-restraint being removed, the Jewish population has had no motive to limit its reproductive powers. There is reason to think that the Jewish people is exceptionally healthy and fertile; but any race would increase which had the wit to make money a strong stimulus for making it in the need to purchase protection and no private use to spend it on, except food, and the rearing of a family. The Jew has no reason for living in a palace, for keeping up unnecessary servants, or for spending extravagantly on social pleasures; and is, indeed, wise if he avoids all ostentation. His risk of attack from the populace, and the percentage he pays
