s as
a barber and a servant as accomplices?

And again, even on the hypothesis that they had been
actuated by some such fanatical motive as has been
imputed to them, is it at all probable that they would
have selected for their victim an individual so certain
to be missed as the Father Tommaso? From his long
residence at Damascus, and the nature of his calling,
his absence was sure to be noticed. Why not have
selected for their victim some more obscure individual,
on whom their barbarous fanaticism might have exercised
their impious rites with impunity? Bah! why waste time
by pursuing the ridiculous absurdities of these
suppositions any further?

Then, again, all the accusers, with Halil Said Naivi at
their head, were persons of low degree and disreputable
character, whose testimony on any ordinary occasion
would have been received with extreme caution; while the
recollection of the pillaging and extortions to which
the Jewish families have been subjected, affords a clue
to the motives which have instigated the persecutors.

Considerable importance has been attached to the finding
of the bones, but it should be remembered that they were
not discovered till twenty-five days after the
disappearance of Father Tomasso; that the sewer where
the bones were found was the common receptacle of all
the filth and offal of the neighbourhood, and that
considerable difference of opinion existed among the
medical men by whom they were examined as to the fact of
their being human bones at all; while there are strong
grounds for believing in the existence of the most
fraudulent collusion with reference to their discovery.

In conclusion, to the reiteration of my already
expressed opinion, I can merely add that I conceive the
whole charge to be a base and odious calumny,
unsupported by any credible testimony; a mere renewal of
those disgusting persecutions which disgraced the annals
of the dark ages, and one which would not for one moment
be tolerated in the present day among a civilised and
enlightened people.

It is much to be regretted that the disturbed condition
of the East at the period of your Mission to Alexandria
prevented Mohhammad Ali from ordering a full and fair
judicial enquiry into the whole of the proceedings of
the Damascus affair, as there is no doubt that the
enemies of the Jews will not be slow to represent the
ed