that enforce cleanliness; for the reverse of this virtue is so prominent a quality in the Polish Jews, as to make them objects of almost unconquerable repugnance, and the filth and discomfort in their dwellings is as great. The dirt, the misery, the squalor, and the extreme poverty of the great majority of the two millions and a half of Israelites who inhabit the Polish provinces, is the more surprising as they are addicted neither to drunkenness, gambling, nor idleness; and it must, therefore, in a great measure be attributed to their extreme ignorance and to the fanatic zeal with which their rabbis and congregational superiors have resisted every reform and innovation proposed by the Government; for however many sins the Poles, as all the Christian nations of Europe, may have to answer for as regards the Jews, it can not be denied that during the present century at least, a great part of the nation has sincerely desired to ameliorate their position. Even the Emperor Nicholas at one period made a pretence of wishing to enforce enlightenment among them. He invited Dr. Lilienthal, a learned German Jew, to St. Petersburg, to assist with his advice a commission instituted for the purpose of devising means for diffusing light among his Jewish subjects. The advanced minds among the Jewish population in the Emperor's dominions hailed these preparations as the dawn of a new day; but the orthodox Jews fasted and smote their b.easts and prayed, fearing that a fatal blow would thus be levelled against Judaism. Happily for them, according to their own ideas, Nicholas seems to share the views of the great Catharine, who, writing to the gov ernor of Moscow once on the subject of schools, said: "If I institute schools, it is not for us but for Europe, where we must maintain the rank we hold in public opinion; but the day that our peasants evince a desire to become enlightened, neither you nor I will remain in our places.' Dr. Lilienthal sojourned in Russia many years, enjoying a high salary, but the schools that he was to organize were never established. bly tall and thin, and distinguished by the palor of their countenances, which seems more a characteristic of the race than the result of individual suffering. Their complexion is clear and transparent, their eyes dark, their features delicate and chiselled, and their hair and beards dark, curly and glossy, their hands being remarkable for great delicacy and elegance of shape. The contrast between the beauty and noble expression of the countenances of these men and the abjectness of their character and meanness of their pursuits, is a source of constant wonder to the stranger. As some one has strikingly remarked, it is as if you beheld King David or King Solomon engaged in the pursuits of hucksters and pedlars, or the patriarchs committing petty roguery. If nature be not a deceiver, how much nobler destinies might not these men have worked out for themselves, had not bigotry and persecution done their worst against them! In Lithuania, in particular, some travellers aver that every Jew is a handsome man; and the meekness, mildness, and gentle melancholy expressed in the countenances of the younger men especially, is described as singularly touching. As a general rule the women are less handsome, and are much inclined to a degree of embonpoint which oversteps the limits of the beautiful; however, their turban-like headdresses, formed of gaudy-colored handkerchiefs, give them a certain picturesqueness of appearance; and the rich coronets of pearls and precious stones with which the wealthy Jewish ladies encircle their brows on festive occasions, harmonize well with their dark hair and brilliant eyes. Altogether, however, the male attire, consisting of a long, dark caftan, fastened round the waist with a broad silk sash, and a high, conical fur cap, is more striking than that of the women. But when, in summer, the fur cap is exchanged for a low-crowned, broadbrimmed hat, the dignified Oriental sinks down into the common-place Jew. Says a traveller, who visited the country lately: Even when not discriminated by their filth The hundreds of thousands of the poorest Jews and rags, the Jews are distinguished from in Poland would afford an excellent study to any the rest of the population by their dress, one who should desire to ascertain the minimum which is of a decidedly Oriental character; of nourishment on which the human body can be but among themselves the similarity is so sustained, or to what perfection the art of making great, that in travelling through the Polish a whole garment out of innumerable rags can be provinces from the Black Sea to the Baltic, carried, or in how far the air inhaled by human one might fancy oneself pursued by the beings may be loaded with pestiferous smells withsame individuals, the illusion being further reared without clothes, without water, without out becoming deadly, or how children may be encouraged by the similarity in the size and soap, without comb, without brush, without medfigure of the men, who are almost invaria-icine, without instruction, or without care of any kind. The misery, the want, the sickness, the hunger, the suffering of all kinds that reigns in the damp, filthy, pestiferous dwellings of the poor Jews in Warsaw, Cracow, Lemberg, Mittau, Wilna, and Odessa, where half-a-dozen families, all richly blessed with children, live in one wretched cellar, amid dirt and rags, with little light and less heat-the squalid figures, the manycolored tatters, worthy of being exhibited in an ethnographical museum, which may be seen in the Polish market-places, only those can picture to themselves who have read descriptions of the Esquimaux, of the New Hollanders, or of the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego. This is a distressing picture, and it is not viewed with indifference in Poland; but the hands of the nation are tied by the tyrannical despotism which weighs upon Christian and Jew alike. Towards the close of the last century, when the Polish nobles were in every way exerting themselves to retrieve the errors of the past while their weak king, the minion of the worst enemy of his country, was unconsciously preparing his downfall, strenuous efforts were also made to ameliorate the condition of the Jews; and a "project of reform" relating to this subject was drawn up in a most just and liberal spirit, by a member of the Diet, and would no doubt have passed into law, had not the partition of the country intervened. According to this project of reform, the Jews were once more to be admitted to all the rights of citizens, while their duties to the country were not made to interfere with their liberty of conscience. It was enacted that as citizens of the State they should learn the language of the country, and should send their children to the national schools, but at the same time their religious rights were secured, and all honorable careers were opened to them. But the vultures that were to rend Poland asunder, were already hovering over the doomed land, and these noble efforts at self-regenaration, which might have served as an example to the freest and most enlightened nations of the times, only hastened the action of its enemies, lest the nation should grow too strong before the blow that was to fell it to the ground was levelled. The Israelites, fully aware of the sincerity of the intentions of the Polish patriots in their favor, proved their gratitude in 1794, when the people flew to arms in despair, by freely mingling their blood with that of their Christian compatriots; and they fought with bravery for the independence of the country which promised once more to become a true home to them, Those among the Polish Israelites who, in consequence of the partition were transferred to Prussian rule, were the most fortunate. They have obtained many privileges they did not before possess; and they have in consequence abandoned their distinctive garb, and have lost many of their distinguishing features. Under Austrian rule, the influence of the Jesuits, who had contributed so much to their sufferings and degradation in Poland, continued to be felt; and the Jews of Gallicia still maintain all their characteristic features. But it was the Israelites transferred to Russian dominion that were the most to be pitied. They were left entirely at the mercy of the caprice of the governors of the provinces, and other ignorant, barbarous, and rapacious officials, who all hoped to make their fortunes by despoiling the Jews, whose riches they conceived to be boundless. If the victims refused to deliver up the gold which in reality they did not possess, the tyrants put them to the torture to wrest it from them. The underlings imitated the example of their superiors; even the Russian soldiers--poor miserable slaves, ill-treated and trampled upon themselves--when they met with a Jew, played the masters for a while, and added their share to the misery that weighed down this unhappy people. The government also oppressed them in every way, by advancing every pretext to squeeze money out of them, by the creation of monopolies, by increased taxation, and by illegal persecutions, while at the same time it denied them all rights. They were not allowed to hold real property, or to frequent the schools of the country; entrance into the capital was entirely denied to them, as also the right of lengthened sojourn in any of the populous cities. In 1807, when the Grand-duchy of Warsaw was constituted, equality before the law was proclaimed for all citizens, and the Jews among the rest; but this liberal constitution remained a dead letter under the rule of the House of Saxony, and the Jews continued to be burdened with exceptional taxes, administrative decrees depriving them of the rights which the organic law accorded to them. All attempts to transform the Jews into Polish citizens were abandoned, and, except that the additional hardship of performing military service was added to their other burdens, they remained what they had been for centuries. To relieve themselves from this, to them most hateful service, they offered to pay an annual sum of 700,000 Polish florins to the Government, and under pretext of raising this sum, a tax called kosher* was imposed in 1810 on all meat consumed by the Jews. This odious and vexatious tax, which weighs most heavily on the poor, is farmed out every year (for the Russian government most unjustly continues the tax, though the exemption from military service, for which it was a commutation, has been withdrawn) to the highest bidder; and it is but too often Jewish speculators who come forward to bid, in the hope of enriching themselves by the oppression of their brethren. However, the extraordinary tenacity and perseverance of the Hebrew character has frequently been exhibited in resistance to this tax, whole com munities having for six months together abstained from eating meat, thus reducing to bankruptcy the heartless farmer of the tax. At the same time that this tax was imposed, the right of keeping taverns or public-houses in the villages, was withdrawn from the Jews, and a great number of families thus reduced to a state of perfect destitution. The treaty of Vienna brought a new change in the state of Poland. Again a charter was given ensuring the rights of the citizens, Jewish as well as others, and again the people were delivered over to arbitrary rule, and this time to that of a capricious and tyrannical despot; for, while the Emperor Alexander at St. Petersburg planned benevolent reforms for Poland, the Grand Duke Constantine, nominated commander-in-chief in the kingdom, was grinding the people under his heel. The burdensome taxes and restrictions weighing on the Jews were not relieved, while the prohibitive commercial system of Russia further injured them in their trading relations. Some sought relief in smuggling, in spite of the heavy penalties attending detection. This led to the establishment of a regular system of extortion, having for its object to despoil the rich Jews for the benefit of their denouncers, who shared their gains with General Rozniecki, the Chief of the Secret Police. The word of a single spy was sufficient to cause the incarceration of the most respectable citizen, and whether in nocent or guilty, there was no escape from such captivity except through means of a golden key. The poor Jews, against whom no political plottings could possibly be invented, were made to follow their Polish fellow-citizens to Siberia, under pretext of being guilty of smuggling. At this time also (1823) the Jews were again forced to separate from the *The word kosher signifies permitted food, other citizens, and to take up their abode in distinct quarters of the town; and, upon the whole, their condition became more intolera| ble than ever. An incident, closely connected with an arbitrary measure, from which the Jews, in particular, suffered very severely, will suffice to show how constitutional government was understood by the Russian masters of Poland. Monopoly in the distillation and sale of spirits and beer was suddenly introduced by the Minister of Finance, Lubecki. The monopoly being, however, restricted to the towns, the price of the two commodities soon rose enormously in Warsaw, and other populous cities, as compared with the price in the villages; and many poor Jews, who had been deprived of every honest means of subsistence, were induced to smuggle spirits into the towns, though many lost their lives in conflict with the custom-house officers. At length the citizens of Warsaw finding themselves great sufferers by the enhanced price of the two necessary articles, drew up a petition to the Emperor, couched in the most respectful terms, but representing that the introduction of this monopoly was a violation of the rights guaranteed to the Polish people by the charter. The day after the petition had been sent in to the government office at Warsaw, the six respectable citizens, whose names stood first among the signatures, were dragged from their homes, conducted to an open square in the city, and there made to cart earth in wheelbarrows, like common malefactors, in the presence of an immense concourse of people, who looked on in profound and melancholy silence. One of the sufferers on this occasion, a venerable old man with silver hair, was Mr. Czynski, who had served as captain under Kosciusko, and whose son has distinguished himself among the Polish emigrants in Paris, by his generous efforts in behalf of the Polish Jews. Among the means resorted to, at this period, for extorting money from the Jews, were also threats of displacing their cemeteries, and of pulling down their synagogues; and the unhappy people, already reduced to great privations, imposed long and severe fasts upon themselves in order to raise the sums required to bribe the authorities to desist from these plans. So great was the terror inspired by the Grand Duke Constantine, that it has been observed, that not a single Israelite at that time ventured to inform his coreligionists abroad of the dreadful oppression they were subjected to in Poland. One only of Alexander's benevolent and one of indescribable hardship and privation. He is badly fed, badly paid, badly housed, and ill-treated by his superiors from the ser wise measures in favor of Jewish reform was carried out, at least partially. A commission was instituted at Warsaw to inquire into the condition of the Jews, and to propose ameli-geant to the commander-in-chief; but added orations; but the only permanent fruits of its labors, was the establishment of a school in Warsaw for Jewish rabbis, with a view to forming tolerant and enlightened teachers, capable of exercising a salutary influence on their co-religionists; and the suppression of the Jewish authoritative bodies called cahal, who exercised a most despotic and tyrannical rule over their fellows by means of the anathema which they had the power of pronouncing. These two measures have at least emancipated a great number of the younger generation of Polish Jews from the thraldom of ignorant orthodoxy in which the rigorous Talmudists endeavor to keep their people. For the Emperor Nicholas was reserved the distinction of levelling against his Jewish subjects the most cruel blow which has ever yet fallen upon this much-oppressed people. Shortly after his accession, being desirous of creating a powerful navy, and being advised that the Jews, hitherto exempt from military service, possessed peculiar aptitude for naval service-by the stroke of a pen he caused 30,000 children to be torn from the arms of their parents and transported to the coasts of the Black Sea during a most rigorous season. Many perished on the road, others succumbed to the cruel discipline of the Russian navy; and, if we are to believe the Jewish archives, a few years afterwards there remained only 10,000 young men alive of this first levy of Israelites. From one point of view the military service imposed upon his Jewish subjects by the Emperor Nicholas may be considered a step in advance, as it places them on an equal footing with the Christians, and as such it is indeed represented; but we must not forget that this equalization as to burdens has not been accompanied by any equalization as to rights, and that the Jews continue to be excluded from serving the country in any other capacity, and to be burdened with many exceptional imposts. But should the Tzar ever sincerely desire to place the Jews on a level with his Christian subjects of the same rank, he would only be making them the equals of serfs and slaves. However, the sufferings the Jews are exposed to by being subject to military conscription are also of an exceptional character. By far the greater number of the Jews born in the Polish provinces do not understand the Polish language, and much less the Russian; the position of the Russian soldier, as is now well known, is to this the Jewish soldier has to bear the hatred and contempt of his comrades in arms, who look upon him with abhorrence as belonging to the race who crucified their God; and such being the case, it is no wonder that these unhappy creatures resort to the most desperate expedients to evade a service which is also most repugnant to their unwarlike tastes and habits. A few years ago, a sledge with ten corpses was brought into Wilna one morning: they were the bodies of ten young Jews, who had preferred death from cold and hunger in the forest, to life among the barbarous Russian soldiers and officers. Such tragedies are of daily occurrence in Russia; but in 1843, a tragedy of a new character, and on a grander scale than had ever before been witnessed, was got up by order of the Emperor. In that year an ukase was published ordering all the Jews dwelling on the frontiers of Prussia and Austria to remove fifty wersts further into the interior; and thus a population of no less than 200,000 souls were suddenly uprooted from the soil on which their fathers had been established for many centuries, and cut off from their accustomed sources of livelihood. The Jews exerted themselves to the utmost to avert this dreadful calamity. They sent deputations to St. Petersburg to prove to the Government that not one in a thousand of them had been guilty of the smuggling which served as a pretext for this tyrannical measure; they offered to renounce entirely all participation in the frontier trade, or, if any of their members took part in it, to make all responsible for each; but the Emperor, who no doubt had ulterior objects in view, remained inflexible. Animated by the reforming spirit of his great ancestor, Nicholas has also declared war against the beards and caftans of the Jews, as Peter did against those of his Boyars. It is not, however, European civilization which Nicholas wishes to introduce, but that perfect uniformity which would render the power of his colossal empire more easy to wield. The idea of a wholesale conversion of the Jews is not either foreign to Nicholas, for he can not renounce the hope of embracing these too and a-half millions of his subjects also within the arms of the orthodox Russo-Greek Church, which are eventually, according to his plan, to encircle all the nations that dwell within the shadow of the Muscovite sceptre. That the Russians are fully aware that hitherto perse cution and oppression have only strengthened the faith of the Jews, is proved by the oath that is administered to them on entering the | army or the navy: they are made to swear not to abandon the Emperor's banners even when the Messiah appears. From Sharpe's Magazine. TUNIS. TUNIS, the capital of the regency of the same name, is situated on the coast of Barbary, North Africa. Its climate is considered extremely salubrious, though the heat in summer is very oppressive. During the hottest months the thermometer generally stands at about 86 degrees in the shade; but the greatest difference in the temperature is caused by the prevalence of the south-east wind, called sirocco, which passes over the burning sands of the Sahara, or Great Desert, and is on that account so warm, as to appear almost like the breath of a furnace. The country is exceedingly fertile, but is left almost without cultivation, owing to circumstances which I can not here detail. In summer no rain falls, and on that account, as well as by reason of the great heat, the ground is completely parched and brown; but in spring and autumn, when the former and latter rains moisten the earth, and the scorching sun has less power, the country appears robed in green and smiling in ver dure. The Bey of Tunis is nominally subject to the Sublime Porte, and possesses despotic power in his own regency. Tunis is famous as having been one of the strongholds of the corsairs, or pirates, of whose dark deeds and bold exploits so much has been written; but the place derives its principal interest from its close vicinity to the site of ancient Carthage, once the great rival of Rome, but of which scarcely a vestige now remains to witness to the reality of its former grandeur. In the second century Christianity flourished in Carthage, and shed its benign influence over the regions around; but, alas! the darkness of night prevails where once the Sun of righteousness shone resplendent. Mahommedanism, propagated and maintained by the sword, is now the religion of these once-favored districts. The streets of Tunis are narrow, crooked, and dirty. It is impossible to form a correct estimate of the number of its Moorish inhabitants, as the Mahommedan religion forbids the numbering of the people. The town, however, is large and over-populated; and is said to contain, exclusively of the followers of the false prophet, about 30,000 Jews, 5000 Maltese, and a vast number of Europeans, principally French and Italian. There are nine European consuls and one American, resident in the town; and the flags hoisted on the different consulates on the Sabbath, or on any particular occasion, present a very lively appearance as they wave in the breeze. I The Mahommedans and the Jews know of no other Christianity than that exhibited to their view in the form of Catholicism, and the more idolatrous worship of the Greek church. They therefore imagine that all Christians observe the same ceremonials; and those among them who were brought into contact with ourselves or other Protestants, could with difficulty be persuaded that we did not worship idols, to which practice. they have the greatest possible aversion. well remember, some time after my school was established, the Jews, being anxious to know whether Christianity was taught in it, sent a person to ascertain the fact. The messenger walked into the school room, looked round in search of a crucifix, and not seeing one, asked the children if we had any images for worship, and being told, No, went away perfectly satisfied that no Christianity was taught: whereas, at the same time, the girls were reading the New Testament daily, and learning with great interest those prophecies relating to the first advent of the Messiah, |