Mr. DAVID Sammoss, who, many years ago, was prevented from
entering the Court of Aldermen after he had been elected to it, by the refusal to take a declaration prescribed for Christians, he being a Jew, has again been ousted on the same score. Opinion has ad- vanced elsewhere; a Jew has been appointed to some of the highest offices to which the private citizen can attain; but the Court of Aldermen has stood still. The obstacle to his admission is merely verbal,—obviously insurmountable to any of his faith, yet worthless in itself as a safeguard against any conceivable danger. The candidate for admission has to declare that he will not use his power to injure the Established Church,—which the Jew, as Alderman, might very well promise; but he has to utter the promise "on the true faith of a Christian,"— which no Jew could do without implying a falsehood. What is wanted here is to secure the thing—protection for the Established Church from insidious attack through municipal offices,—which a Jew might reasonably undertake; but the promise is wanted from him, in fact, on the faith of a Jew, as it is his honesty and bona fides that are in question. Perhaps the Court of Aldermen could not strain the law so far as to waive the declaration, although it is argued that they might have admitted the candidate, leaving to him the responsibility of neglecting the form ; but it seems scarcely credible that the lave can remain unaltered. If Jews. are to be still disabled from bolding certain municipal offices, let it be ex- pressly, and not by a quibbling, pettifogging legislation, that excludes- them with verbal pitfalls to trap their honest scruples. The Church runs far more danger from getting behind, such discreditable screens, than from any assault which it could possibly sustain at the hands of an Alderman Stuomoss.
