of any private citizen.

Doubtless, the remarkable longevity of Sir Moses had something to do
with emphasizing the celebration. Great wealth, too, attracts the regard
of mankind. But there are many rich old Jews in the world whose birthday
excites no enthusiasm. The briefest review of the long life of Sir Moses
Montefiore will sufficiently explain the almost universal recognition of
the recent anniversary.

He was born as long ago as 1784, the second year of American
independence, when William Pitt was prime minister of England. He was
five years old when the Bastille was stormed, and thirty-one when the
battle of Waterloo was fought. He was in middle life before England had
become wise enough to make Jew and Christian equal before the law, and
thus attract to her shores one of the most gifted and one of the most
virtuous of races.

The father of Sir Moses lived and died in one of the narrow old streets
near the centre of London called Philpot Lane, where he became the
father of an old-fashioned family of seventeen children. This prolific
parent was a man of no great wealth, and consequently his eldest son,
Moses, left school at an early age, and was apprenticed to a London firm
of provision dealers. He was a singularly handsome young man, of
agreeable manners and most engaging disposition, circumstances which led
to his entering the Stock Exchange. This was at a time when only twelve
Jewish brokers were allowed to carry on business in London, and he was
one of the twelve.

At the age of twenty-eight he had fully entered upon his career, a
broker and a married man, his wife the daughter of Levy Cohen, a rich
and highly cultivated Jewish merchant. His wife's sister had married N.
M. Rothschild, and one of his brothers married Rothschild's sister.
United thus by marriage to the great banker, he became also his partner
in business, and this at a time when the gains of the Rothschilds were
greatest and most rapid.

Most readers remember how the Rothschilds made their prodigious profits
during the last years of Bonaparte's reign. They had a pigeon express at
Dover, by means of which they obtained the first correct news from the
continent. During the "Hundred Days," for example, such a panic
prevailed in England that government bonds were greatly depressed. The
first rumors from Waterloo were of defeat and disaster, which again
reduced consols to a panic price. The Rothschilds, notified of the
victory a few hours sooner