Jewish Persecution

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[MARCH 7, 1863.

146

(Previous Page) been the most ungrateful and troublesome of any he had to deal with. They used to annoy him incessantly, and frequently broke into the wine-vaults below and stole his choicest wine.

Another of Mr. Longworth's permanent and quiet charities was the weekly distribution at his house, every Monday morning, of three to eight hundred ten-cent loaves of bread to whoever would call for them. Once, when flour was high, and the bakers reduced the size of their loaves, Mr. Longworth thought he would be doing his beneficiaries a good turn by having them made partly of rye, and thus considerably enlarging their size. His customers, however, as soon as they found it out, raised each a clamor, and called him so many disparaging names, and annoyed him so much with their threats and complaints, that he was glad to order a return to the pure wheat. No crosses and ingratitude of this kind wearied the kindness of his heart, or distressed him half so much as the sight of destitution and suffering.

When Professor Mitchell took in hand the establishment of on Astronomical Observatory, and went about soliciting popular subscriptions for the purpose, application was made to Mr. Longworth to know whether he would part with his Mount Adams property, and on what terms, as a site for the proposed Observatory. He at once made a donation for the purpose of four acres of ground on the top of the hill, conditioned only that it should be only used for the contemplated object forever.

The personal appearance and manner of Mr. Longworth were very singular. He was small in stature, probably about five feet three, thin in figure, and moved with a shambling gait. He was very careless in his costume. He unfailingly wore a white cravat, with a shirt collar sometimes reaching to his ears, sometimes falling over on his neck. His hat was napless, old, and discolored; his clothes fitting loosely about him; his shoes, or brogans rather, were large and unblacked, with the thongs, if they had any, straggling about. This figure, with hands stuck in the pockets of a very long coat, with a quick, twinkling eye, sharp features, and a long thin mouth, quivering with fun and sarcasm, could be easily recognized in the streets of Cincinnati as Nick Longworth, the millionaire.

A curious anecdote is related of him, which illustrates his peculiarity of dress and habit. On one of those intolerably hot days which visit Cincinnati in mid-summer he sat on a stoop to rest for a few moments, and while wiping the perspiration from his forehead held his hat in his hand. A gentleman passing by, judging from his dress and fatigued appearance that he was in need of alms, dropped a quarter into his hat. This was in the ancient happy days when quarters formed a portion of the circulating medium. Mr. Longworth put the coin in his pocket, and remarked, very naively, "Thank you, Sir; I never earned a quarter so easily before in my life." Despising the externals of wealth and elegance in his own person, Longworth kept a princely home. His gardens and hot-houses abounded in the rarest exotics, and he did not shut them up with a niggard hand from the public. His beautiful gardens in Pike Street, near Deer Creek, were accessible to every respectable person who wished to enjoy them, and, if his gardeners were not on hand to point out their beauties, it is very probable that Nicholas Longworth himself would perform the part of chaperon. Mr. Longworth was a ready writer, full of wit, humor, and sarcasm. His contributions to the agricultural magazines and daily journals were very valuable. In fact, the agricultural and fruit-growing interests of the West are highly indebted to him for their progress.

Mr. Longworth had four children—three daughters and one son. One of the daughters married Larz Anderson, of Cincinnati, brother of the hero of Fort Sumter—a prominent lawyer, at one time a noticeable Whig politician, and a most elegant and accomplished gentleman. The wealth of which Mr. Longworth died possessed is put down at fifteen millions, but it is probable that it may be quoted at a much higher figure. His city lots alone would probably amount to that sum. The value of his property in the suburbs of Cincinnati, and in the different counties of Western Ohio, from Hamilton County to Sandusky, would probably swell his estate to twenty millions. In every sense he was a remarkable man, whose biography is worth preserving.

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1863.

WHO ARE OUR ENEMIES IN
ENGLAND?

SOME stir has been created in fashionable circles by the eccentric behavior of a British nobleman, the Marquis of, or Lord, Hartingdon, son, it is said, of the Duke of Devonshire, who lately appeared at an evening party given by the banker Belmont with a miniature secession flag, worn as an order of nobility, on the breast of his coat. He was civilly requested to remove it, but declined to do any thing so reasonable. Thereupon an officer in the United States Infantry, a son of our townsman Mr. Charles A. Hecksher, gave him the choice of removing it himself or having it removed for him; and the British nobleman wisely chose the former alternative. It was expected that a hostile meeting would grow out of the little transaction; but his Lordship has very commendably avoided provoking any such breach of the peace.

Before we condemn this interesting member of the British aristocracy—as many of our fellow-citizens seem inclined to do—we must call to mind his station and the examples he had before him. The favorite motto of the British

aristocracy is, "Stand by your Order!" And it is to the faithful adherence of the bulk of British noblemen to this party cry that the British aristocracy has owed its long lease of power. Begotten in corruption, fattened on plunder, and subsisting solely through the inconceivable devotion of the British people to the principle of toadyism, the British aristocracy would have been long since overthrown and destroyed, but for the stanch adherence of all its members to the duty of standing by their order, and opposing, by any and every means, the inroads of the democracy upon their hereditary domains. Every British nobleman is bred in this principle—that, perish what may, he must stand by his party. Like John (now General) Cochrane, who declared himself ready to vote for the devil, if he had received a regular nomination at Tammany Hall, every member of that hallowed body, the British aristocracy, is ready to sustain, by word or act, the policy of his order, though that policy condemn him to stand by Satan and all his myrmidons.

This young lord, now, seeking a guide of conduct during his stay here, will naturally have found it in the speeches and writings of the leaders of his party at home. He will have noticed that Mr. Gladstone, who, though untitled, is one of the most reliable leaders of the British aristocracy, has expressed his decided sympathy with the Southern rebels. He has read Earl Russell's sneering dispatches to our Government, and his speech in which he declared that "the North was contending for power, and the slave-owners for independence." He has doubtless remarked that Earl Derby and Mr. Disraeli—also influential leaders of the British aristocracy though of the party opposed to Earl Russell and Mr. Gladstone —have concurred in the opinion that, on the whole, the South was sure to succeed and the North sure to fail. He will have observed that other persons, representing, more or less directly, the British aristocracy, such as Sir James Ferguson and Mr. Lindsay. member of the British Parliament, after coming here, and eating our beef, drinking our wine, and accepting the obeisances of our snobs, returned to their home and reviled us, having found no "gentlemen" here outside of the Southern plantation, where men own their mistresses and sell their children Finally, if he be an acute and observant youth, he will have perceived that every journal of aristocratic opinion in Great Britain sympathized with the rebels, while every democratic organ gave us its support.

Under these circumstances, what could a young British nobleman—bred in fealty to his order—do but sport a secession flag? We protest that great injustice has been done this young man—should we apologize for calling him merely "a man?"—by denouncing him as a snob, a vulgar rascal, and a scamp who desired to insult Monsieur Belmont's guests. He merely did what any other British nobleman of his spirit would have done under the like circumstances.

In the general tendency to denounce England —which has been aroused by the Alabama, etc. —it is too often forgotten that the people of England are as palpably divided on the subject of our war as the people of the United States. In London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and a dozen other large British towns, public meetings have been held, at which resolutions of sympathy with the North have been carried by overwhelming majorities. The slavery party in England have been challenged to call a single popular meeting to sustain their views, and have wisely declined the challenge. It is believed that there is not a single town in England in which the partisans of the slave Confederacy could venture to face the people on their platform. Wherever the English people have had a fair chance to express their views, the honest British spirit has taken sides manfully with the North.

But the aristocracy—the men who live by other men's labor, like the Southern planters; the lordlings who enjoy fat estates in virtue of the apostasy of their ancestors, two centuries since, or because a dissolute female ancestor of theirs became the mistress of a king or prince; the class which thrives on hereditary privileges and exclusive rights, and whose property and livelihood depend on the exclusion of the yeomen of England from the legitimate reward of their labor—this class is our deadly enemy.

For years, these indecent robbers of other men's bread—European types of Southern slave-drivers —have regarded the United States as the chief enemy of their order, and the standing menace of their sons' inheritance. They have lived, eaten, drunken, and slept, in terror, lest the people of England should some day discover that American Government was possible without an aristocracy. In times gone by slavery was the stone they used to throw in our face. Now they are as fond of slavery as Jeff Davis and Mason, and they stone us with the pebble—disunion. And every act and every word of theirs is designed to aid the Southern rebels—not that they love them, but that they want to show to the people of England that government without a hereditary aristocracy is an impracticable vision.

The contest we are waging is not fought in our interest alone. We are fighting the battle of democracy throughout the world. If we win, hereditary privilege will have seen its best day.

If we fail, the Marquis of Hartingdon and his class will realize their dearest hope, and the partisans of democracy and free government will be crushed for many a generation.

LEAH.

WHEN we spoke last week of the hatred of races, and mentioned the fearful persecution of the Jews in Europe three or four centuries ago, we did not know of the powerful sermon that was nightly preached from the same text in the drama of Leah, played by Miss Bateman at Niblo's theatre. It is an English adaptation of a German sensation drama, and there was never a more timely play. It was in its fifth week when we saw it; and it would be well if it could be seen for fifty weeks, and always by a crowd as large as that which has thronged the theatre during Miss Bateman's engagement.

The plot is simple, and turns upon the loathing which was felt in Christian Europe for the Jews. It shows the deceit, the terrible crimes, the hopeless imbruting of human nature, which necessarily springs from the indulgence of such hate. The effect is great. As a simply sensational performance it is remarkable. The play is wrought in bold, coarse strokes. There is never any doubt as to the meaning. But its peculiar fitness to the condition of our public affairs is most striking.

The play opens in a village in Germany upon a holiday. The peasants, after service in the church, pass out, leaving the old magistrate, the priest, the schoolmaster, and a young woman upon the scene. The schoolmaster is an apostate Jew, living in terror lest he should be discovered and betrayed by some of his race, and therefore affecting an extreme Christian zeal that he may the more relentlessly insist upon banishing all Jews. There is some theological sparring between him and the priest, in which the false schoolmaster is painfully zealous for the observance of forms, and the priest mildly asserts the superiority of the Christian spirit. The young girl then tells a story of a poor Christian family relieved by some Jews. The schoolmaster starts with horror, and expresses the most malignant hate of Jews, and betrays his fear of the consequences of their coming. While they are still talking the rabble of the village rush in chasing Leah the Jewess, whom they have discovered, and clamor for her death. The priest, having heard her story, and moved by his pious human heart, protects her. "What has this forlorn woman done to you?" "She is a Jewess," reply the mob, "and that's enough. Kill her! Drown her!" The priest advances and holds them back. "I am your pastor. You are Christians. Christ commands us to live in charity with all men. Why should you harm the innocent, who asks only forbearance?" The crowd are softened by this appeal, and fall back from their victim, who stands motionless and silent. But the apostate, fearing lest the priest should prevail, and the Jews be suffered to remain with the chance of discovery and shame to himself, turns toward the priest and people and says: "But the laws of our country forbid her to remain. Shall we not obey the laws?" Instantly the crowd roars again for the innocent blood. But the priest repeats the law of God commanding the succor of the helpless, and the crowd once more yields.

Then, fierce and malignant, the apostate turns to them, holding up his finger, crouching, glaring, and whispering—"We want no Jews here! none of the accursed race here!" Again the clubs are raised, and the hoarse cry of the rabble is heard. Again the priest interposes. But the dark apostate, glaring once more and scornfully whispering, demands: "What do they come for? To beg; to steal; to take your work and wrest the bread from your mouths! Ha ha ! We want no accursed Jews here!" The rage of the multitude shrieks in reply, and they press more furiously and threateningly upon the pale and terrified Leah. The priest appeals; but the ferocious passions of the mob are in play, and the apostate hisses again: "Not only to beg; not only to rob; not only to take your work and food, but to steal your children and murder them for the Passover feast. No Jews here! None of the God-accursed race in our peaceful village!" It is the critical moment. Malignant hate and Christian charity contend for the mastery. The mob rushes on to immolate the unresisting victim, but at the very moment of threatened murder the priest, vicar of God, places his hand upon the head of the Jewess, raises the cross above her in the air, and the crowd of furious peasants at the sight of the holy symbol instinctively fall upon their knees.

The rest of the play develops the course of crime and universal misery which springs from the fear of the apostate and the deep-seated hate of the people toward the Jews.

It would not be possible to represent the attitude and arguments of the reactionary leaders at the North more perfectly than in the words and conduct of the apostate. The staple of all the speeches against the Government, and in favor of the rebellion and anarchy is, like his, an appeal to the popular prejudice against an outcast race. The argument is simply—"Is a negro equal to a white man? Will you fight for the negro? Do you want your daughter to marry a black man? Do you want the bread taken from your mouths and the work from your hands by negroes? Will you have black Senators and a negro President?"

Upon this hatred of race the reaction tries to found its political power in order to abase, divide, and destroy this nation. It has no other hope, no other resource, than this desperate pandering to the meanest and most inhuman prejudice. If such a course is not in itself sufficiently revolting—if its exposure in history is not appalling enough—then, whenever and wherever you can, go and see Leah, and have the lesson burned in upon your mind, which may help to save the national life and honor.

OPPRESSION.

AT a time when the desperation of party-spirit is endeavoring to make it appear that the liberties of American citizens are endangered by the Government, it is worth while to note an instance of real oppression by a Government that we may understand what tyranny is. From some of the wild speeches made in "Conservative" clubs, but fortunately often hissed as well as applauded, it might be supposed that honest people here were really in peril. Dungeons and midnight seizures are anathematized as if there were a system of terror already established. And the loudest cries are raised by those who have instigated all the mobs in the country for the last twenty years, and who have deliberately excused the constant wanton violations of the Constitution, of common right, and of ordinary humanity, which have been always matters of course in the section now in rebellion.

The immediate occasion of the late Polish insurrection against the Russian Government was the Conscription for 1863. Instead of being distributed equally among the people it was made to fall, by a special order, upon one class, and resulted in a seizure of the bankers, traders, and professional men of the country, "the main object being to clear the country of all persons likely to disturb the public tranquillity." A general descent was made upon their houses at night by Cossacks. The victims were seized. Their hands tied. They were dragged to fortresses, and then sent off in gangs to the Caucasus and Siberia to serve for twenty-five years in a foreign army.

Among civilized nations in modern times there has been no such outrage of humanity and civil right as this, except in the rebellious slave section of this country. There a more overwhelming despotism and universal terror prevails than an American citizen of the free States can believe to be possible. Before the war actually began it was a crime punishable with insult, danger, and even death to be a Northern man. Now it is a capital offense to be suspected of fidelity to the country. And this is the state of things with which those are in full and active sympathy who are so alarmed by the "Lincoln tyranny." Marshal Kane is profoundly concerned for the liberties of American citizens at the North, so is Vallandigham, so is May, so is every man who wishes the success of the rebellion. But upon the fearful and bloody annihilation of every form of liberty, personal and political, under the rebel rule, they have not a word to say except in commendation and sympathy.

Let every man ask himself what this means. To what does "Conservatism" of this kind inevitably tend? Let him read the recently published work of Rev. Mr. Aughey, who, convicted of loving his country, escaped from the rebel gallows, and the story of Parson Brownlow, and of Mr. Stevenson in the Thirteen Months in the Confederate Army, and of Mr. Russell in his Diary at the North and South; let him talk with his neighbors who have had experience before the war of the respect shown the rights of an American citizen by slave-holding communities, and answer.

POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY.

POPULAR politics—to use a convenient term—began with our Revolution. To control the popular sentiment is, therefore, the aim of political leaders. How to control it is their problem. The question has been historically answered in three ways.

First, our fathers answered it by saving that the general well-being was founded in the perception of natural equal rights, and was to be maintained by constant popular enlightenment as to the close relation between the protection of rights, or justice, and public prosperity. Second, the French Revolutionists of '93 answered it by the simple word "terror"—a policy which ended in anarchy and military despotism. Third, the French Revolution of 1830 answered it by saying that the control of public opinion was to be secured by fear of tumults, and by universal and skillful corruption.

Louis Philippe was the Magnus Apollo of this policy. He is the great progenitor and model of what Mr. Beecher calls the Pennsylvania and New York school. Louis Philippe depended upon the timidity of trade, and upon his ability to bribe men by their ambition. If they wished money, he gave gold. If they wished reputation with action, he gave office at home and abroad. If they wished passive distinction, he covered them with honorary decorations. His reign was the policy of governing by selfish interest, tried by the most skillful hand under the most favorable conditions. What was the result? Simply that, after a career of eighteen years, his government suddenly ended, not by an overthrow, but by a collapse—a tumbling down. In all France no voice spoke for it—no finger was raised for it. The old Bourbon branch, the effete branch as we call it, at least struggled, convulsed Europe north the world, and finally, by its foreign alliances, conquered the revolution, seated Louis XVIII. in the Tuileries, and sent Napoleon to St. Helena. But the younger branch simply rotted in its place, and, like a tree, sank suddenly and wholly, not in a gale, but because of its utter decay.

The doctrine of Louis Philippe is that of a school of politicians among ourselves. It is what is called the doctrine of expediency. It claims the possession of common sense. It sneers at dreamers, and impracticable theorists, and visionary philosophers. It assumes to be practical, to take men as they are. Its boast is that it deals with facts. It informs us that civilization and progress are slow processes; that we can't hurry God; and that Jefferson tells us to do what we can, and not to spoil every thing by trying to do all we would. In one word, it declares that politics have nothing to do with morals, because politics as a system is the science of expediency.

Granted. But now please to explain your explanation. If there were ever a politician unvexed by any moral qualms, Louis Philippe was he. If there were ever a man of expedients, Louis Philippe was the man. If ever the doctrine that government (Next Page)