“Why, Gentlemen, does the law severely punish murderers, and sometimes go the length of inflicting upon them the penalty of death?  Because he who murders a Christian murders at once a body and a soul.  He sends before the Sovereign Judge a being who is ill-prepared, who has not received absolution, and who falls straight into hell—­or, at the very least, into purgatory.  This is why murder—­I mean the murder of a Christian—­cannot be too severely punished.  But as for us (counsel and client), what have we killed?  Nothing, Gentlemen, absolutely nothing but a wretched Jew, predestined for damnation.  You know the obstinacy of his race, and you know that if he had been allowed a hundred years for his conversion, he would have died like a brute, without confession.  I admit that we have advanced by some years the maturity of celestial justice; we have hastened a little for him an eternity of torture which sooner or later must inevitably have been his lot.  But be indulgent, Gentlemen, towards so venial an offence, and reserve your severity for those who attempt the life and salvation of a Christian!”

This speech would be nonsense at Paris.  It was sound logic at Rome, and, thanks to it, the murderer got off with a few months’ imprisonment.

You will ask why the Jews have not fled a hundred leagues from this Slough of Despond.  The answer is, because they were born there.  Moreover, the taxation is light, and rent is moderate.  Add that, when famine has been in the land, or the inundations of the Tiber have spread ruin and devastation around, the scornful charity of the Popes has flung them some bones to gnaw.  Then again, travelling costs money, and passports are not to be had for the asking in Rome.

But if, by some miracle of industry, one of these unfortunate children of Israel has managed to accumulate a little money, his first thought has been to place his family beyond the reach of the insults of the Ghetto.  He has realized his little fortune, and has gone to seek liberty and consideration in some less Catholic country.  This accounts for the fact that the Ghetto was no richer at the accession of Pius IX. than it was in the worst days of the Middle Ages.

History has made haste to write in letters of gold all the good deeds of the reigning Pope, and, above all, the enfranchisement of the Jews.

Pius IX. has removed the gates of the Ghetto.  He allows the Jews to go about by night as well as by day, and to live where they like.  He has exempted them from the municipal kick and the 800 scudi which it cost them.  He has closed the little church where these poor people were catechized every Saturday, against their will, and at their own expense.  His accession may be regarded, then, as an era of deliverance for the people of Israel who have set up their tents in Rome.