to officials, will be less in proportion as he is shabbily dressed and poorly housed. Naturally he accumulates money, and naturally, also, he marries young and does not dream of limiting his family. Is it wonderful if the rapid increase of the race has begun to provoke alarm? In 1778 the Jews of Poland and Lithuania cannot have much exceeded from 300,000 to 400,000.[1] Those in the other parts of Russia were at that time an inappreciable quantity. The smallest estimate now puts the Jews of Russia at more than 3,000,000, and the highest makes them amount to 6,000,000.[2] Rejecting as extravagant the calculation which makes them double every fourteen years,[3] we may surely admit that the ruling powers have some cause to be alarmed if a race that dislikes agriculture, mechanical industry, the life of a sailor, and the profession of arms, that does not intermarry with its neighbours, that does not share their traditions, or aspirations, or faith, increases, let us say, twice as rapidly. Eighty years ago it might have been sufficient to deal with the Jews of Russia, as the wise policy
- ↑ According to the last capitation there were 166,871 Jews in Poland, exclusive of Lithuania (c. 1778) Clarke, Travels in Poland, book i. chap. vii. p. 119. The population of Lithuania was probably about half that of Poland at this time. This would make the number of Jews about 250,000; but it is safer to put it higher, as they were reputed to be skilful in evading the capitation tax.
- ↑ The Statesman's Year-Book for 1891 gives the number of Jews in Russia as 3,000,000, but the calculation is manifestly inadequate, as only 80 per cent of the population of the Empire is accounted for in the table of faiths. Lanier puts the Jews at 3,100,000, but his calculation is defective in the same way. M. Metchersky, as quoted in the Contemporary Review (March 1891, p. 320) declares that there are 6,000,000 Jews in Russia. It seems as if 4,000,000 would not be an excessive estimate. In that case they have increased tenfold, while the rest of the population has increased rather less than threefold. If this rate of relative progression is continued, they will be one-ninth of the population, instead of as now one-twenty-sixth, in 110 years.
- ↑ Prince Metchersky, indeed, goes further, and says: "There are already in Russia 6,000,000 Jews; in twenty years time there will be 20,000,000 Jews."—Contemp. Review, March 1891, p. 320.
