The term public jurisdiction includes roads and streets, if their breadth be sixteen ells by sixteen, and they be open from gate to gate, and six hundred thousand persons pass thereon. And everything in a public jurisdiction, which is not three handbreadths high, is reckoned as the ground, and is public jurisdiction: even thorns and filth upon which the public does not tread.
But if it be from three to nine handbreadths high, but not nine entirely, and its breadth be four by four, it is called a Karmelith.
"If it be less, it is called a free place." (Orach Chaiim, 344.)
Now it may well be doubted, concerning many Jews in this city, whether they are acquainted with even this portion of the Sabbath laws, but it is quite certain that they are ignorant of the innumerable modes of possible transgression which arise from these distinctions; for the oral law then goes on to define what is lawful concerning each. In a public jurisdiction he may move anything four ells:—
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Hebrew characters)
"Every man has got four ells within which he may move things." Or, as Rambam expresses it—
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"In a private jurisdiction, and in a free place it is lawful to move things the whole length of the place, even though the length of each should be many miles. But in a public jurisdiction or a Karmelith things may not be moved more than four ells." (Hilchoth Shabbath, c. xxiv. 11.) Now, it may well be asked, upon what passage of the law of Moses these distinctions are grounded, and what there is in a public jurisdiction which converts an act lawful in a private jurisdiction, into a sin to be expiated only by stoning the offender? For instance, in a private jurisdiction a man may carry certain matters for miles without violating the Sabbath commands, but if he venture out into a public jurisdiction with a pocket-handkerchief or a snuff-box, or a half-crown in his pocket, and carry it only five ells, he is guilty of death; and if the Talmudists held the reigns of power, would be led out as soon as the Sabbath was over, and stoned. Reason revolts against such doctrine, the act is the very same in both cases, and is therefore in both cases a sin, or in both cases lawful.
