The Hope Pioneer

JEWISH PERSECUTION.

Inside History of an Event That Horrified the Civilized World.

Pall Mall Gazette.

Last month in every paper published within the limits of civilization appeared a telegram from Morocco announcing that a shocking outrage had been perpetrated on no fewer than eight Jewesses by the order of British representative. This sudden outburst of Jew-baiting under such distinguished auspices sent a shudder of horror through the world. If "British representatives" took to flogging Jewish maidens naked in Moorish market places, where could the hapless children of the chosen race hope for immunity from the ruthless hatred of their persecutors? Fortunately for the credit of the British name, the publication of the details of the outrage entirely clears Englishmen from any share in this crime; and, as for Jew-baiting, it turns out that the "British representatives" who acted so abominably was so far from being animated by religious bigotry or race prejudice that he was himself a Jew both by creed and descent. The whole story, however, is so suggestive that it is worth while reproducing its leading features from that unexceptionable authority on all Jewish matters, the Jewish World.

In the little Moorish town of Casablanca there lives a Jewish family named Amiel. The head of the house, earned his living by acting as interpreter for the British Vice-Consul, was much troubled by the dissolute conduct of his two sons. Like Hophni and Phinehas, they grieved the soul of their father by their scandalous debauchery. Their intrigues with certain well-known Jewesses of light repute were a constant source of sorrow to the old man, and one night at the end of January, when the youngsters returned unusually late from a carouse with their companions, he ventured to expostulate with them. They replied by firing a couple of pistol shots at their father, who, being thoroughly alarmed by the attempt upon his life, fled in haste to the Bashaw, who at once sent a file of soldiers to arrest the would-be parricides. There was a stiff resistance, but eventually the young Jews were captured and imprisoned.

The next day they each received 600 blows with the bastinado in the presence of their father. His wrath, however, was by no means quenched. Like other fathers who have to mourn the wickedness of unrepentant prodigals, his indignation grew better and hotter against the sirens whose charms had wrecked the virtue of his sons. He applied to the Bashaw to arrest all the Jewish women of bad repute to whom he attributed his children's ruin. The Bashaw called the Jewish Sheikh, furnished him with a force of soldiers, and gave him a warrant to arrest every Jewess whom the Jew Amiel reasonably suspected of complicity in the ruin of the young Jews who had just been bastinadoed. The Jewish Sheikh, apparently nothing loth, took the soldiers, and that night hauled out of their beds the eight Jewesses whose sufferings have horrified Europe. Of these eight, one is declared to be a Jewish girl of unimpeachable respectability, as, indeed, is not unlikely. A Jewish police des moeurs improvised in Morocco can hardly expect to escape the blunders into which the police charged with such duties constantly fall in more civilized lands. Of the other seven they were, to say the least, no better than they should be. Next the whole eight were stretched flat in the market-place, face downwards. A Moor held each hand, another stood upon their shoulders, and they were severely flogged by relays of soldiers. One of them is said to have gone mad during the process. When it was over, the wretched women were bundled into jail pending their expulsion from the town.

The American Vice-Consul, himself a Jew, interfered, and they were released. That is the whole story, and a very disgusting and horrible story it is, but anything more absolutely different from "persecution" could hardly be imagined. The man Amiel was a Jew, his sons were Jews. The arrests were made by the Jewish Sheikh at the suggestion of the Jew Amiel, and the punishment was inflicted on the Jewesses by the Moors solely at the request of the Jews. Whether Amiel is a fitting person to "represent" this country, even in the humble character of interpreter, is another question.