could obtain as to the treatment of this
persecuted people. It is little enough, but it is something. I found
that their Ghetto, in which some hidden power keeps them shut up just
as in past times, was the foulest and most neglected quarter of the
city, whence I concluded that nothing was done for them by the
municipality. I learnt that neither the Pope, nor the Cardinals, nor
the Bishops, nor the least of the Prelates, could set foot on this
accursed ground without contracting a moral stain--the custom of Rome
forbids it: and I thought of those Indian Pariahs whom a Brahmin
cannot touch without losing caste. I learnt that the lowest places in
the lowest of the public offices were inaccessible to Jews, neither
more nor less than they would be to animals. A child of Israel might
as well apply for the place of a copying-clerk at Rome as one of the
giraffes in the Jardin des Plantes for the post of a Sous-Prefet. I
ascertained that none of them are or can be landowners, a fact which
satisfies me that Pius IX. has not yet come quite to regard them as
men. If one of their tribe cultivates another man's field, it is by
smuggling himself into the occupation under a borrowed name; as though
the sweat of a Jew dishonoured the earth. Manufactures are forbidden
them, as of old; not being of the nation, they might injure the
national industry. To conclude, I have observed them myself as they
stood on the thresholds of their miserable shops, and I can assure you
they do not resemble a people freed from oppression. The seal of
pontifical reprobation is not removed from their foreheads. If, as
history pretends, they had been liberated for the last twelve years,
some sign of freedom would be perceptible on their countenances.

I am willing to admit that, at the commencement of his reign, Pius IX.
experienced a generous impulse. But this is a country in which good is
only done by immense efforts, while evil occurs naturally. I would
liken it to a waggon being drawn up a steep mountain ascent. The joint
efforts of four stout bullocks are required to drag it forward: it
runs backwards by itself.

Were I to tell you all that M. de Rothschild has done for his
co-religionists at Rome, you would be astounded. Not only are they
supported at his expense, but he never concludes a transaction with
the Pope without introducing into it a secret article or two in their
favour. And still the waggon goes backwards.

The French occupation might be