gathering a number of additional stars | in Arabic, "bear;" while the title Beinto a group presenting a distant resem- netnasch-equivalent to Bendt-en-Nasch, blance to a four-legged monster. The name of the Bear, this initial difficulty notwithstanding, is prehistoric and quasi-universal. It was traditional amongst the American-Indian tribes, who, however, sensible of the absurdity of attributing a conspicuous protruding tail to an animal almost destitute of such an appendage, turned the three stars composing it into three pursuing hunters. The same constellation figures, under a divinified aspect, with the title Otawa, in the great Finnish epic, the "Kalevala." Now, although there is no certainty as to the original meaning of this word, which has no longer a current application to any terrestrial object, it is impossible not to be struck with its resemblance to the Iroquois term Okowari, signifying "bear," both zoologically and astronomically (Lafitau, op. cit., p. 236). The inference seems justified that Otawa held the same two meanings, and that the Finns knew the great northern constellation by the name of the old Teutonic king of beasts. It was (as we have seen) similarly designated on the banks of the Euphrates; and a celestial she-bear, doubtfully referred to in the Rig-Veda, becomes the starting-point of an explanatory legend in the Râmâyana (De Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," vol. ii., p, 109). Thus, circling the globe from the valley of the Ganges to the Great Lakes of the New World, we find ourselves confronted with the same sign in the northern skies, the relic of some primeval association of ideas, long since extinct. "daughters of the bier" of the furthest star in the plough-handle, perpetuates the lugubrious fancy, native in Arabia, by which the group figures as a corpse attended by three mourners. A. M. CLERKE. From The Spectator. JEWISH PAUPERISM. SOME eminently unpleasant revelations have lately been made about the condition of the East-End Jews, and the great amount of destitution existing among them. A few figures have been given in proof of this, but nothing in the shape of data calculated to throw clear light upon a subject which, in view of the agitation on foot in reference to foreign immigration, is not uninteresting. So that although many are already aware that poverty prevails among the London Jews to a much greater extent than was imagined — sufficient, certainly, to shake considerably popular faith in the truth of the old saying, "Rich as a Jew"-yet the general public has not the faintest idea of the extraordinary proportions Jewish pauperism has assumed, or the rapid growth of the pauper element among the Jews of the metropolis during the past twenty or five-andtwenty years. A careful analysis of the series of reports published by the Jewish Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Poor, in Devonshire Square, supplemented by such additional data as an intimate knowledge of the inner working and condition of the Anglo-Jewish community enables us to bring to bear upon the subject, reveals a state of things which can only be characterized by the word "appalling." Figures show that, last year, every third Jew in London was actually in There is, on the other hand, no difficulty receipt of poor-relief, every second Jew in understanding how the Seven Stars ob- belonged to the regular pauper class, and tained their second title of the Wain, or every second Jewish funeral which took Plough, or Bier. Here we have a plain place in the metropolitan area was a paucase of imitative name-giving—a sugges- per funeral. The epithet "shocking" is tion by resemblance almost as direct as not too stong to apply to the mass of pauthat which established in our skies a Tri-perism of which such facts are indisputable angle and a Northern Crown. Curiously enough, the individual appellations still current for the stars of the Plough, include a reminiscence of each system of nomenclature the legendary and the imitative. The brightest of the seven, a Ursa Majoris, the Pointer nearest the pole, is designated Dubhe, signifying, Extinct even in Homer's time. For the myth of Callisto (first recorded in a lost work by Hesiod) was a subsequent invention - an effect, not a cause a mere embroidery of Hellenic fancy over a linguistic fact, the true origin of which was lost in the mists of antiquity. evidence. However, to come to figures. The Jews in London form a very small community; absolutely and relatively they are few in number, much fewer, we opine, than many imagine. There are no statistics as to their membership, but we can approximately get at the presumed total. The record of Jewish deaths is carefully community of about thirty thousand; now they are one-third of a body numbering forty-six thousand. In the first fifteen years of its existence, the Board of Guardians added 50 per cent. to the volume of Jewish paupers. Between 1876 and 1886, the number in receipt of poor-relief more than doubled. Summed up, we see that in the period during which the pauperism of the country at large has diminished by 30 per cent., Jewish paupers have increased 150 per cent., and their cost to the Jewish community has increased more than tenfold. The full significance of the figures showing the growth of Jewish pauperism will only be appreciated when the yearly increment of new cases is noted. The rate at which fresh additions to the pauper list have been made annually for the past ten years may be gathered from the subjoined table, which gives the statistics for every other year. Cases are quoted, not individuals; but each case is reckoned, as we before pointed out, to comprise 3.3 persons, for applicants are, in the vast majority of instances, heads of families: kept, and the lists are published in the official reports of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Assuming that the deathrate of the Jews is the same as that of the country at large, the registers enable us to fix the number of Jews in the metropolis at about forty-six thousand. This figure is probably too high, for the deathrate of the Hebrews is higher, much higher, than that of the general body of Englishmen, a fact to which allusion will again be made. The number of Jewish schoolchildren between the ages of three and thirteen-a fifth of the whole community, as a rule-makes the Jews of London about forty thousand. However, we shall under-estimate the amount of poverty rather than over-estimate it, and accept forty-six thousand as the number of Hebrews in London, as the Jewish Chronicle does in a series of statistical tables published two years or so ago. Of this total, no less than 14,350 received poorrelief in the year 1886, the last year for which the Jewish Board of Guardians has published its report. In other words, just upon one-third of the entire body of metropolitan Jews were dependent upon charity; one Jew out of every three encountered was virtually and actually a pauper. The figures showing the advance So that, along with a steady increase in by leaps and bounds " of Jewish pauper- what may be called its old customers, ism year after year are no less striking. the Jewish Board has a steady addition, It is rather over a quarter of a century at a regularly augmenting rate, of fresh since the organization in Devonshire paupers every year. Now, the total inSquare took over, from the three City syn- crease of Jews in the metropolis will not agogues, the administration of poor-relief; much exceed, if it even reach, one thouand the following tables, which are simply sand a year. The average of the tables arranged, indicate at a glance the growth for the past decade therefore shows that of the Jewish poor. The figures are the number of fresh paupers added to the given for every fifth year of the first five-list each year, is three times as great as and-twenty years of the Board's opera- the total increase of the community by tions, and for the three subsequent years births and immigration. Such a phenom1884, 1885, and 1886. The "persons re-enon is without a parallel. lieved" are from 3.1 to 3.3 to each applicant. From 1859-60 to 1873 they are approximately given; from 1878 to 1886 the exact numbers of the Board are quoted: Year. Number Total of of Applicants. Persons Relieved. 1878. 1880. 1882. 1884. 1886. New Cases 873 1,063 1,306 1,368 1,944 But this is not all. The Devonshire Square organization deals only with the German, or Ashkenazic section of the Jewish poor. The Spanish and Portuguese community has its own Board. This community, though retaining its old desig Cost. nation, Spanish, has probably not a dozen £1,240 of the Spanish stock among its members. 1,641 It has been reinforced for the past fifty 3,800 years by the very lowest and most debased 6,900 of the Dutch Sephardim and Mogreb Jews 8,900 from Mogadore and Maroco. The names 11,400 of these people, Sebag, and Corkos, and Afriah, and Arbib, smack of the Barbary coasts. The low morality and intelligence of this body of Jews reflect themselves in The table is instructive. Five-and-twenty a pauper list of over twelve hundred anyears ago, the poor formed one sixth of anually. The total seat-holders of the 1859-60 1,715 1863 1868 . 1,659 6,200 2,090 1873 2,072 6,900 6,800 1878 1883 2,800 1884 1885 3,054 3.408 1886 4,139 11,490 faithfully reflect the appalling mass of pauperism that exists in the Anglo-Jewish community of London. From St. James's Gazette. A PAUPER TRAINING-SHIP. CORDUROY trousers much too short, large patches at the knee, and a corduroy jacket with large and shining brass buttons - - such is the costume that, according to all experience gained either by novel-reading or theatre-going, the pauper lad should wear. But times change, though writers do not always change with them. Let us see how far the picture is true nowadays. A run of little more than half an hour from Fenchurch-Street Station brings us to Grays. As we walk down to the river-bank the forest of masts is visible on our left in Tilbury Docks, a mile or two further down stream. We reach the bank, and walk out along the causeway towards the Exmouth, which lies moored a cable's length from the shore. We push off in a cutter sent to meet us, and in two minutes reach the ship. On the deck the whole ship's company, some six hundred strong, is drawn up for inspection, half in the port watch, the other half in the starboard; each watch being further sub-divided into three divisions. synagogue are under three hundred, so that each head of a family finds four paupers falling to his share. Leaving this, however, out of consideration, it must be pointed out that, owing the peculiar nature of Jewish pauperism, and the fact that the Jewish pauper, even when off the books for a short time, is always on the brink of destitution, the figures given do not even yet fully represent the extent of the pauper class among the metropolitan Jews. An elaborate examination of the data furnished by the reports of the Board of Guardians would be out of place here; and, to avoid anything like partiality in the matter, we shall content ourselves with taking the figures regarded as authoritative by the organs of the Jewish community. The Jewish Chronicle, in a very able summary appearing in its issue of March 9th, 1883-before pauperism had attained its present proportions - estimated that out of a total of twenty-five thousand English Jews, there were seven thousand poor; and of twenty-one thousand foreign Jews settled here, eighteen thousand poor. The total addition of foreign poor in twenty years was set down at fifteen thousand. Making, then, all necessary allowances and deductions, the writer in the Jewish Chronicle holds that the clients of the Board of Guardians in Devonshire Square, the pauper class of the community, may be reckoned at twenty thousand out of the forty-six thousand souls it com- At the first glance it is almost impossiprises.— that is to say, the pauper class ble to realize that these smart lads, with constitutes 43 per cent. of the whole body their neat sailor dress and their chevrons of Jews. The Jewish World, in a recent and gold-lace badges on the sleeves of issue, puts the proportion at 46 per cent. their frocks, are really paupers after all. We regard it as nearer 50 per cent. It A close observer, however, notices in too is only needful to add that the United many cases the deep scars over the glands Synagogue admits that of the total Jewish of the neck, the unnatural look of the funerals in London, 44 per cent. are pau- eyelids, or the dwarfish appearance of the per funerals, and that there are upwards square shoulders, which tell of neglect and of forty charitable institutions at work in privation in their earlier years. But at the community. The poverty of the ma- present the lads look the picture of rude jority of Jews shows itself, moreover, in health. It is past twelve o'clock though, some painful statistics as to the death of the captain reminds us, and his crew have young children. Of the total deaths reg-been hard at work since a quarter to six, istered by the metropolitan synagogues, 81 per cent. were those of children under ten. The proportion among the residents of the country at large is only 43 5. This fact will show how much truth there is in the allegation so frequently made, and so generally credited, that the death-rate of the Jews is lower than that of the people among whom they live. The figures we have quoted are those accepted by the Jews themselves as authoritative, and are given without comment. They do not need it, and only too and, having breakfasted at seven, are quite ready for another meal. Down below, on the main deck, dinner is served, as soon as the boys have changed their parade uniform for their every-day suits. They dine, in messes of twenty, at tables running out from the sides of the ship towards the centre. The food is abundant and good bread and butter and cocoa for breakfast, fresh meat every day of the week at dinner, and cocoa and bread and cheese for supper. Indeed, were the dietary less nourishing the boys would not be fit for the fourteen hours' almost continuous hard work that makes up their daily life. the ship, and cruises about the mouth of the river from Monday to Saturday during the summer, with a crew of two men and thirty boys. are just thrown in as makeweights. On the Exmouth everything seems to be going on at once. There is one class busy The mess-deck serves as dormitory as with big-gun drill, a second with cutlasses, well to some two hundred of the boys. and a third with carbines. In one corner The lower deck "sleeps" another two is a knot of boys clustered round the comhundred; while the orlop-deck takes the pass and mastering the mysteries of its rest. In the daytime the lower deck is thirty-two points. Close by is a model of the schoolroom. Here, with the differ- a full-rigged ship, and boys are learning ent class-rooms separated only by canvas the name of each spar and rope, from screens, the five schoolmasters have to cathead to mizen shrouds. Overhead, conduct their lessons as best they can sails are being loosed, reefed, furled, or while gun-drill or sword-exercise is ener- unbent; while round the ship the water is getically carried on over their heads and alive with boats whose crews are practisthe music of the brass band or the bag- ing rowing, sailing, and steering. On a pipes floats up from the band-room in the fine evening a boat-race is a grand excitehold below. Naturally enough, even the ment. The course is round two marks sympathetic inspector of the Local Gov-and back to the ship, unlimited fouling ernment Board cannot report that reading being permitted. Nor are the boys conaloud or writing from dictation is the fined to row-boats. A sailing tender, a strongest point in the school course. But one-hundred-ton brigantine, is attached to literary instruction is rightly felt not to be the most important matter. School work is much alike all the world over. Let us follow the day's work of a "passedout" boy-one, that is, whose schooling is finished. He is roused by the bugle-call at 5.45 A. M. By six o'clock his hammock has been lashed up and stowed away, and he is ready to take his share in giving the ship its morning cleaning from stem to stern. This lasts till eight o'clock; in the mean time the boy has had his own scrub from head to foot in warm water, followed by a plunge into a cold bath afterwards, and got his breakfast. At half past eight the whole crew parade, and are inspected by the captain. Orders are given out, punishments for offences of the day before are, if necessary, inflicted. Prayers follow at nine o'clock, and then till noon instruction in seamanship. From twelve till two is playtime, then seamanship again till 4.30. From 4.30 till 6, supper and play. Then another three-quarters of an hour's work, except two days a week, when dancing to the music of the band takes its place; till, finally, at a quarter to eight, the bugle sounds to get up hammocks again. By eight o'clock prayers have been said, boys have turned in, lights (except in the officers' cabins) are out, and half the boys are fast asleep. To a landsman the number of subjects included in the training of a sailor is be wildering. The ship's regulations classify them under sixteen heads. Cooking, carpentering, tailoring, each of which is supposed to be enough for one man on shore, And what, it will be asked, is the result of all this training? Let the figures for the year 1886 (an average year) answer this question. In 1886 three hundred and seventy-four boys left the ship. Forty-nine were claimed back by the boards of guardians that sent them, in most cases because their parents were found able to support them. Places for one hundred and seven were found in the mercantile marine, for fifty-five in the army as band boys. But the ambition of a training-ship boy is to be admitted into the Royal Navy. True, the standard is far higher and the requirements more exacting; but, in return, the pay and position and prospects are all better. Into the Royal Navy the Exmouth discharged one hundred and fourteen boys. All the other trainingships in the United Kingdom, with not far from five thousand boys on board, sent only ninety-five. But even though they fail to reach the navy standard, the boys often have good careers open before them. A lad who left the ship six years ago is now, aged twenty-one, an officer on board a telegraph ship with £150 a year pay besides board and lodging. Pending the completion of arrangements for their removal en masse to Čanada, juvenile paupers have no reason to complain of the prospect before them after a year or two's training on board the Exmouth. From The Spectator. THE PERMANENCE OF NATIONAL CHARACTER. never lost, and receptivity of a kind marked the nation always. One object of the Mosaic law was to keep the Jews separate; their chiefs were always afraid of Canaanitish or other Gentile influence; the Babylonians during the captivity did materially alter Jewish theology, and the tendency of Hebrews to "Grecize" recollect, nothing is so opposite as Hebraism and Hellenism - was in the time of Josephus the subject of angry comment and complaint among themselves. The Arabs, nearly as pure a race as the Jews possessing in the most marked and special degree the organization which enables those to whom it is given to surpass manEVERYBODY who looks at politics from kind in music, whether as composers, either the historic or the philosophical singers, or instrumentalists. A certain point of view, is asking just now whether receptivity has, it is alleged, come upon it is possible that a grave change has the Jews, who everywhere, except in Enpassed over the English national charac- gland, acquire a veneer from the country ter. The people have seemed for some of their adoption; but it is acknowledged time so irresolute, so devoid of self-confi- that the essential Hebrew character is dence, so timid in decision, so incompetent to state in what morality they believe, so reluctant to inflict suffering, and above all, so ineffective in action, that the question is not unreasonable, and the usual answer is obviously insufficient. The people, it is customary to say, have not changed, but the depositaries of power have. The country is now governed by the proletariat, and it is foolish to expect from a proletariat the qualities displayed either by a middle class or by an aristocracy. The ten-pounders were not sentimental, but the householders are. That answer implicitly asserts that there is no such thing as a national character, but only a class character, and is at variance with the leading facts of history; while, as applied to England, it presents this especial difficulty. The quality of hardness, now supposed to be growing deficient, was specially the quality of the class which has now come into power. No one was so hard, so little moved by sentiment, so unforgiving, as the English peasant or worker of the towns. We are, therefore, on this theory, in presence of the phenomenon that a nation has not only become softer, but has become so because its hardest class has risen to the top. That is not likely, to say the least of it; and as an increase of apparent softness in Englishmen is undeniable, we are driven to inquire whether national character ever does really change; so change, that is, that it will, when under strong emotion, or from any cause acting instinctively, take a totally unexpected course. The question is one of great difficulty, because so many of the more ancient peoples of mankind have mixed their blood; but we should say that, on the whole, the answer must be in the negative. The Jewish character, for example, seems to resist all pressure of circumstance, and to be substantially what it always was, -the character, that is to say, of a singularly stubborn or "stiff necked" people, very earthy in their desires, though full of capacity; not spiritual, yet able to produce from time to time men of lofty spiritual gifts; not artistic in temperament, yet not quite, we fancy, for the Jews had not the Arab wealth of slaves, and were not brought into such contact with the negro- appear, from the account of all travellers, to be precisely the people they were when, twelve hundred years ago, they burst upon the decaying Roman world. We will not speak of Greece, - first, because the Greeks are deeply crossed with Slav and other blood; and secondly, because when Englishmen speak of Greeks, they mean the thirty or forty thousand families of Attica who displayed for a moment in history matchless intellectual qualities, and then in all human probability died out; and we can only say of the Romans, who can hardly be proved to be the ancestors of modern Italians, that for a thousand years they exhibited an unchanged type, strong, narrow, resolute business men, determined to govern, but almost superstitious in their reverence for law. We may, however, quote the French as evidence of unchangeableness. They are to-day in all essential qualities the Gauls whom Cæsar conquered, and Taine could still describe his countrymen in the great Roman's words. Where is the change in Welshmen since they gave up the fight for independence; or can any one point out the characteristic German trait which throughout her history can be proved to have died out in Germany? The Spaniard remains the man he was in all but his fierce energy, and that may have declined only because those who possessed it transferred themselves almost en masse to the New World, where the Spaniard has made an impression in |