Page images
PDF
EPUB

Hale liked very well at that time to play off jokes on General Cass. The little Abolitionist party, as we all remember, had nominated Hale as their candidate for the Presidency, a nomination made more out of the pride of a minority, than any other feeling, as neither the party nor its candidate had any hope of success.

Louis Napoleon has said, when in the midst of general prosperity Utopias spring up without taking root in a country, the slightest employment of force extinguishes them; but, on the contrary, when the time arrives in which society, deeply tormented by real and imperious needs, requires reform, the Utopian ideas appear again incessantly, the success of the most violent repression is but momentary, and, as the fabled hydra, for one head struck off, a hundred others grow in its place.

These remarks apply especially to the history of the Abolition question in this country. Twenty or thirty years ago it was a Utopian idea which had hardly taken root, and was repressed without trouble. But the time came when the North was tormented by an imperious need "for a firmer and more consolidated government; the State Constitutions required reform-for the Southern members of the Confederacy grew positive in their old claims to the right of State independence, and of withdrawing if they pleased from the Union; then the Abolition question took a form and consistency it had before wanted, its roots planted themselves firmly, and spread far and wide. The John Brown raid was repressed with impolitic severity, and its place supplied by a hundred other dangers much more fatal secession at the South, violent resentment at the North, aggression on the one side, a retaliating punishment on the other, all followed by a five years' bloody and cruel Civil War; but out of the carnage and confusion came the Abolition question, no longer a wild Utopia, but a fixed fact; and henceforth its faith will be a cardinal principle in all the State Constitutions of this re-established Union, whether we like it or not.

But Hale's innocent pleasantness at General Cass's expense must not be forgotten. One day, at the period which I am recalling, some act of President Polk excited a little feeling of resentment in the Senate. In the course of the debates a Democratic Senator, who was also à warm partisan supporter of General Cass, made an allusion not very respectful, or courteous, to Hale's nomination. It was not the first time this ungenerous liberty had been taken, and Hale had evidently grown tired of it; but he was too good-humored to lose his temper, and resent it in a way that would make matters worse on both sides.

Before the Senator's words were fairly concluded, Hale sprang to his feet, and, with an assumed sternness that startled every one and arrested their attention, said:

"This act of the President is intended, I fully believe, to secure another term of office, and,"-here a merry sparkle glowed in his eyes which belied the severe expression of his mouth,-"and, Mr. President, I think it behooves me and every other aspirant to the Presi dency on this floor-" he stopped, and, putting his hand to his ear in a listening attitude, asked as he turned towards General Cass,

"Beg pardon! Did the Senator from Michigan speak to me?" The hit was capital, every one on the floor and in the gallery took it on the instant, and the good-tempered General enjoyed the joke as much as if it had not been at his expense. After that the debates were never disturbed by allusions to Senator Hale or his Presidential hopes.

The nation

Those were pleasant old political times, and the mind grows crowded with memories that are like Hale's mythical great men,—their name is Legion. The spirit of those happy days can never return. was passing from youth to maturity, "throwing out its nettle-rash" as the French express our old proverb of "sowing wild oats;" it was free from all memories of a rankling past, and when its representatives wrangled it was as children, and they were reconciled as easily.

Those of us who were young at that time, and had our ideas formed on the easy, free principles of what was considered then the true spirit of our Government, are startled at the apparent contradictions we now see. The broad sight and generosity of Liberty seems to be gone. But those were, probably, the "Prince Hal" days of the American Government; and it may be that Liberty has need, in order to establish herself more firmly on earth, to sacrifice something of her wide extended horizons, and clothe herself with stronger, narrower armor of restraint and control.

However this may be, wiser ones than I must settle it, and, whether they settle it or not, a Wiser than any of us will bring order in the end.

AMONG THE ISRAELITES.

TWENTY thousand Israelites dwell in New York city, move among its people, aid in making picturesque its ever-shifting scenes, and fascinate the student of human nature with the interest they awaken. It

was their story that we heard read when we were children, first of all; and as we look upon them to-day we see prophecy fulfilled. It is no light reflection, with men who do reflect, that in looking in the faces of Israelites to-day we see portraits of the very men who walked the streets of Jerusalem in the days when Christ lived, so perfectly is the Jewish physiognomy preserved to the present time. The Hebrews who trade in the marts of our city now, have the same faces, bear the same names, preserve the same religious customs, as the Hebrews of old. They mingle with us everywhere; they jostle us in Broadway; they speculate with us in Wall Street; they invade our homes in search of possible pence; they dwell alike in the Five Points and in Fifth Avenue; every where they are with us, but nowhere of us.

The superficially observing and unthinking New Yorker almost instinctively associates the name of the modern Israelite with Chatham Street and "ole clo'." If he goes beyond this he most likely gets no further than Shylock, who does indeed stand as a representative Jew most strikingly, but who, as ordinarily represented upon our stage, is far from being the many-sided character Shakespeare knew and painted. There are other characteristics in Shylock than avarice-his deep paternal love, for example-but who sees any thing in him but the hideous and repulsive, as our actors furnish him forth? Who thinks of any thing but bloodthirsty avarice and hatred of the Christian, when thinking of Shylock? A German actor, who has appeared upon the metropolitan stage comparatively recently, has rendered this rôle in a manner that gives to Shylock something more of a human character.

There are Jews out of Chatham Street, however; and there are Jews who do not emulate Shylock closely.

That the Israelites, of New York and of every city of every land, are beyond all other people in their inordinate lust for gain, is a fact that admits of little question. For hundreds of years, these people have been so oppressed and persecuted, so tabooed and outlawed in the communities where they have struggled to live, that it is hardly surprising that they have become permeated through and through with the ambition of getting money. All other ambitions have been denied them. Money alone could become a power in their hands; money alone could buy them liberty and life-life in a poor, hunted, half-tolerated way. Denied all possibility of political preferment, for centuries together-the walks of literature and art, of all high and ennobling ambitions, closed against them-nothing was left them but the pursuit of wealth. Outside of their home circles, the

world contained for them nothing human, nothing softening or elevating in its influences. Society was their foe; it naturally became their prey. Centuries of this bitter course of tuition could not fail of thrilling the very life-blood of the Israelite with the fierce thirst for gold. Better days have greeted this people since America became an asylum for the oppressed of all nations; they have found freedom here (and, since we set the example, in England also), and have not been shut out from our humanities, it is true; but the work of centuries can not be changed in a day. The characteristics of the Israelite are fixed, and will not undergo alteration while the generation walks the earth at least. Amalgamation would help to effect a change; but the Israelites will not amalgamate with other peoples. Blood flowing in the same channels for ages will keep its nature undiluted, and the Jew will remain a Jew till the last.

Intense love of money animates alike the breast of the wealthiest Israelite importer, and of the dirtiest little ragamuffin who vegetates in the filth of the city's slums. The art of seducing the greenbacks from Christian pockets is second-nature to both. It is a clear case of “nascitur, non fit." The Jew clothier in Chatham Street, who buttonholes the unwary countryman, can flatter and wheedle to perfection; but he finds his rivals in the highest circles of the Hebrew world. (High circles exist in New York for the Israelite, as well as for you, good reader.) He is no more au fait in the art of wheedling than the up-town belle who gets hold of you at a fancy fair. Talk of the persuasiveness of American ladies at their fancy fairs! Till you have seen the beautiful Rebecca at a Jewish fair, practicing the science which lies rooted deep in her very nature, you have not acquired an approximate idea of what can be accomplished by feminine art at such places. Come with me to the Jewesses' fair to-night in Fifth Avenue, on the corner of Fourteenth Street. The room is densely thronged; no one will notice us if we go in quietly, and conduct ourselves with that manly dignity, dashed with a mere soupçon of brusquerie, which we have found so effectual in repelling the ladies' advances elsewhere. Mistaken supposition? We have no sooner passed the door than we are attacked by a daughter of Israel, before whose dark, oriental eyes, welling with the dreamy depth of far-remote ages, all our obstinacy melts away like the daintiest frost-fringe before the warm south wind's breath. Beautiful as the storied maiden who echoed from the parapet the defiance of the Knight Templar, in a voice of cooing softness she beseeches us to take a chance in the drawing of the lovely Afghan that hangs upon her snowy arm, and murmurs that it is "only faive

dollars." If you think of Chatham Street that moment-you are a wretch! You decline, in a very decided tone, to do any such thing as that which she asks of you; you inform her that you have no possible use for an Afghan-that you would not know what to do with it if you had it that you have no money; and you essay to move on, as gently as may be. Vain purpose! She stands like an angel in your path; she coos forth the sweet word "charity;" she gets thrillingly close to your side, and begs to know your name, that she may write it down with her little pencil in her little book; her breath is balmy as an April morning; the diamond on her little finger flashes bedazzlement; from the laces on her bosom rises an intoxicating odor as from a vase of spring flowers; you may as well do it first as last, for it is your fate. You surrender your name to her; with her little pencil she misspells it out of all possible recognition in her little book; she takes your money, and is gone. Only to give place to anothermore beautiful, more seductive, more irresistible-who breathes soft music in your giddy ear concerning a china tobacco-box of rare design, "to keep that in," she tells you, "which all gentlemen love." That she pronounces it "luf" does not help your case. Your name-misspelled in quite another style this time-goes down as a candidate for the possible possession of the tobacco-box; and houri the third succeeds her. Be wise, and beat a retreat before your pocket-book is emptied. Pause not to see the Afghan and the tobacco-box" drawn;" you will get neither.

Now, if you look about upon the children of Israel here gathered, you must be also one of the unthinking if these oval faces, these dark, deep eyes, these olive complexions, these luxuriant tresses, and richly rounded figures do not unfold the pages of the past to you. Here are the descendants of the patriarchs. In no other sphere of New York life, even the wealthiest and the most exclusive, will you see so many faces bearing that indescribable impress which men term aristocratic. It is true of both sexes in a measure, but it is especially true of the female sex. You may talk of your old Knickerbocker blood; it is a thing of but yesterday when compared with the blood in these veins, which has flowed in an unbroken channel for ages. Here ancestry can be traced back, through myriads of generations, to the patriarch who went out from Egypt to obey the mandate of God himself, to build up his "children and his home.” Yonder Israelite maiden, as lovely as a dream of olden story, who bends above a bank of flowers to hear the whispered words breathed in her ear by a curled Hebrew darling with mustaches, bears in her classic face the evidence of her

« PreviousContinue »