all he asked was to be let alone, and here that bless-
ing was granted him more fully than m any country
he had ever seen. Gold and golden opportunities,
money-making and freedom of thought, speech, and
action, these were here, and these were the Jews'
earthly paradise.
So Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. He did not love work, so he carefully kept out of the mines; but in every mining town was found his clothing store, his fruit and trinket shop, his cheap John establish- ment. And in the cities he built him a synagogue, and warehouses upon the streets devoted to merchan- dise, and dwellings in the choicest suburbs. Hotels and watering-places were filled with his presence ; secret societies felt his influence ; but otherwise, save in his trafficking, he held aloof from gentile associa- tions.
Liberalized by environment the Jews cared little for the tenets of their faith ; many of them forsook God; few closed their shops on a Saturday; some sacrificed unto new gods; few took to themselves the daughters of gentiles to wife. Nevertheless they yet retained their ancient rites, which proved as bands holding them in one brotherhood.
True they shared with the Asiatic and the Ameri- canized Spaniard the antipathy of the dominant race, with this difference : the antipathy manifested toward the Jew was perpetual and unattended by violent demonstrations, while repugnance to the Chilean and Chinaman broke out into occasional bloody encounters. In this inspiring of dislike they excelled all other people ; though they did not seem to take it greatly to heart, and disliked as evenly and serenely in return. Money was the humanizing bond however ; Christian and Jew loved money.
Here, as elsewhere, they mingled freely with the people, more freely, perhaps, than anywhere else since the days of Abraham, though they mixed with them as little as ever. Though crafty and cunni
