Europe, which sees things from afar, naturally supposes that under so tolerant a sway as that of Pius IX., Jews have thronged from all parts of the world into the Papal States.  But see how paradoxical a science is that of statistics.  From it we learn that in 1842, under Gregory XVI., during the captivity of Babylon, the little kingdom of the Pope contained 12,700 Jews.  We further learn that in 1853, in the teeth of such reforms, such a shower of benefits, such justice, and such tolerance, the Israelites in the kingdom were reduced to 9,237.  In other words, 3,463 Jews—­more than a quarter of the Jewish population—­had withdrawn from the paternal action of the Holy Father.

Either this people is very ungrateful, or we don’t know the whole state of the case.

While I was at Rome, I had secret inquiries on the subject made of two notables of the Ghetto.  When the poor people heard the object I had in view in my inquiries, they expressed great alarm.  “For Heaven’s sake don’t pity us!” they cried.

“Let not the outer world learn through your book that we are unfortunate—­that the Pope shows by his acts how bitterly he regrets the benefits conferred upon us in 1847—­that the Ghetto is closed by doors invisible, but impassable—­and that our condition is worse than ever!  All you say in our favour will turn against us, and that which you intend for our good will do us infinite harm.”

This is all the information I could obtain as to the treatment of this persecuted people.  It is little enough, but it is something.  I found that their Ghetto, in which some hidden power keeps them shut up just as in past times, was the foulest and most neglected quarter of the city, whence I concluded that nothing was done for them by the municipality.  I learnt that neither the Pope, nor the Cardinals, nor the Bishops, nor the least of the Prelates, could set foot on this accursed ground without contracting a moral stain—­the custom of Rome forbids it:  and I thought of those Indian Pariahs whom a Brahmin cannot touch without losing caste.  I learnt that the lowest places in the lowest of the public offices were inaccessible to Jews, neither more nor less than they would be to animals.  A child of Israel might as well apply for the place of a copying-clerk at Rome as one of the giraffes in the Jardin des Plantes for the post of a Sous-Prefet.  I ascertained that none of them are or can be landowners, a fact which satisfies me that Pius IX. has not yet come quite to regard them as men.  If one of their tribe cultivates another man’s field, it is by smuggling himself into the occupation under a borrowed name; as though the sweat of a Jew dishonoured the earth.  Manufactures are forbidden them, as of old; not being of the nation, they might injure the national industry.  To conclude, I have observed them myself as they stood on the thresholds of their miserable shops, and I can assure you they do not resemble a people freed from oppression.  The seal of pontifical reprobation is not removed from their foreheads.  If, as history pretends, they had been liberated for the last twelve years, some sign of freedom would be perceptible on their countenances.