As for the rich, they gave charity unscrupulously—­in the same Oriental, unscientific, informal spirit in which the Dayanim, those cadis of the East End, administered justice.  The Takif, or man of substance, was as accustomed to the palm of the mendicant outside the Great Synagogue as to the rattling pyx within.  They lived in Bury Street, and Prescott Street, and Finsbury—­these aristocrats of the Ghetto—­in mansions that are now but congeries of “apartments.”  Few relations had they with Belgravia, but many with Petticoat Lane and the Great Shool, the stately old synagogue which has always been illuminated by candles and still refuses all modern light.  The Spanish Jews had a more ancient snoga, but it was within a stone’s throw of the “Duke’s Place” edifice.  Decorum was not a feature of synagogue worship in those days, nor was the Almighty yet conceived as the holder of formal receptions once a week.  Worshippers did not pray with bated breath, as if afraid that the deity would overhear them.  They were at ease in Zion.  They passed the snuff-boxes and remarks about the weather.  The opportunities of skipping afforded by a too exuberant liturgy promoted conversation, and even stocks were discussed in the terrible longueurs induced by the meaningless ministerial repetition of prayers already said by the congregation, or by the official recitations of catalogues of purchased benedictions.  Sometimes, of course, this announcement of the offertory was interesting, especially when there was sensational competition.  The great people bade in guineas for the privilege of rolling up the Scroll of the Law or drawing the Curtain of the Ark, or saying a particular Kaddish if they were mourners, and then thrills of reverence went round the congregation.  The social hierarchy was to some extent graduated by synagogal contributions, and whoever could afford only a little offering had it announced as a “gift”—­a vague term which might equally be the covering of a reticent munificence.

Very few persons, “called up” to the reading of the Law, escaped at the cost they had intended, for one is easily led on by an insinuative official incapable of taking low views of the donor’s generosity and a little deaf.  The moment prior to the declaration of the amount was quite exciting for the audience.  On Sabbaths and festivals the authorities could not write down these sums, for writing is work and work is forbidden; even to write them in the book and volume of their brain would have been to charge their memories with an illegitimate if not an impossible burden.  Parchment books on a peculiar system with holes in the pages and laces to go through the holes solved the problem of bookkeeping without pen and ink.  It is possible that many of the worshippers were tempted to give beyond their means for fear of losing the esteem of the Shammos or Beadle, a potent personage only next in influence to the President whose overcoat he obsequiously removed