JEWISH PAUPERISM.

OME eminently unpleasant revelations have lately been made about the condition of the East-End Jews, and the great amount of destitution existing among them. A few figures have been given in proof of this, but nothing in the shape of data calculated to throw clear light upon a subject which, in view of the agitation on foot in reference to foreign immigration, is not uninteresting. So that although many are already aware that poverty prevails among the London Jews to a much greater extent than was imagined-sufficient, certainly, to shake con- siderably popular faith in the truth of the old saying, "Rich as a Jew "-yet the general public has not the faintest idea of the extraordinary proportions Jewish pauperism has assumed, or the rapid growth of the pauper element among the Jews of the Metro- polis during the past twenty or five-and-twenty years. A careful analysis of the series of reports published by the Jewish Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Poor, in Devonshire Square, supplemented by such additional data as an intimate knowledge of the inner working and condition of the Anglo-Jewish community enables us to bring to bear upon the subject, reveals a state of -things which can only be characterised by the word" appalling." Figures show that, last year, every third Jew in London was actually in receipt of poor-relief, every second Jew belonged to the regular pauper class, and every second Jewish funeral which took place in the Metropolitan area was a pauper funeral. The epithet " shocking " is not too strong to apply to the mass of pauperism of which such facts are indisputable evidence. However, to come to figures.

The Jews in London form a very small community ; abso-

lutely and relatively they are few in number, much fewer, we opine, than many imagine. There are no statistics as to their membership, but we can approximately get at the presumed total. The record of Jewish deaths is carefully kept, and the lists are published in the official reports of the Board of Depu- ties of British Jews. Assuming that the death-rate of the Jews is the same as that of the country at large, the registers enable us to fix the number of Jews in the Metropolis at about 46,000. This figure is probably too high, for the death-rate of the Hebrews is higher, much higher, than that of the general body of Englishmen, a fact to which allusion will again be made. The number of Jewish schoolchildren between the ages of three and thirteen-a fifth of the whole community, as a rule-makes the Jews of London about 40,000. However, we shall under. estimate the amount of poverty rather than over-estimate it, and accept 46,000 as the number of Hebrews in London, as the Jewish Chronicle does in a series of statistical tables published two years or so ago. Of this total, no less than 14,350 received poor-relief in the year 1886, the last year for which the Jewish Board of Guardians has published its report. In other words, just upon one-third of the entire body of Metropolitan Jews were dependent upon charity : one Jew out of every three encountered was virtually and actually a pauper. The figures showing the advance by "leaps and bounds" of Jewish pauperism year after year are no less striking. It is rather over a quarter of a century since the organisation in Devonshire Square took -over from the three City Synagogues the administration of poor-relief; and the following tables, which are simply arranged, indicate at a glance the growth of the Jewish poor. The figures are given for every fifth year of the first five-and.twenty years of

the Board's operations, and for the three subsequent years 1884, 1885, and 1886. The "persons relieved" are from 3.1 to 33 to each applicant From 1859-60 to 1873 they are approximately given ; from 1878 to 1886 the exact numbers of the Board are rooted :-

The table is instructive. Five-and-twenty years ago, the poor formed one-sixth of a community of about 30,000; now they are one-third of a body numbering 46,000. In the first fifteen

Year. of Applicants.

1959.60

1,715

• 1863 1,659

1868 2,090 1873 2,072 1878 2,471 1883 2,800 1884 3,054

1885 3,406 1886 4,139 Number Total of Persons Relieved, Cost.

6,200 21,240

6.100 1,641 6,900 3,800 6,800 6,900 7,685 6,900 10,529 11,400 10,028 11,490

11,014 .... 12,100 14,557 14,600

years of its existence, the Board of Guardians added 50 per cent, to the volume of Jewish paupers. Between 1876 and 1886, the number in receipt of poor-relief more than doubled. Summed up, we see that in the period during which the pauperism of the country at large has diminished by 30 per eent, Jewish paupers have increased 150 percent., and their cost to the Jewish community has increased more than tenfold.

The fall significance of the figures showing the growth of Jewish pauperism will only be appreciated when the yearly in- crement of new cases is noted. The rate at which fresh additions to the pauper list have been made annually for the past ten years may be gathered from the subjoined table, which gives the statistics for every other year. " Cases " are quoted, not individuals ; but each case is reckoned, as we before pointed out, to comprise 3.3 persons, for applicants are, in the vast majority of instances, heads of families :- ISM 1880. 1882, 1881, 1886.

New Cases 873 ... 1,063 ... 1,306 ... 1,368 ... 1,944 So that, along with a steady increase in what may be called its "old customers," the Jewish Board has a steady addition, at a regularly augmenting rate, of fresh paupers every year. Now, the total increase of Jews in the Metropolis will not much exceed, if it even reach, one thousand a year. The average of the tables for the past decade therefore show that the number of fresh paupers added to the list each year, is three times as great as the total increase of the community by births and immigration. Such a phenomenon is without a paralleL

But this is not all. The Devonshire Square organisation deals only with the "German," or Ashkenazic section of the Jewish poor. The Spanish and Portuguese community has its own Board. This community, though retaining its old designa- tion, "Spanish," has probably not a dozen of the Spanish stock among its members. It has been reinforced for the past fifty years by the very lowest and most debased of the Dutch " Sephardim " and "Mogreb" Jews from llogadore and Maroc°. The names of these people. Sebag, and Corkos, and Afriah, and Arbib, smack of the Barbary coasts. The low morality and in- telligence of this body of Jews reflect themselves in a pauper list of over 1,200 annually. The total seat-holders of the Synagogue are under three hundred, so that each head of a family finds four paupers falling to his share. Leaving this, however, out of con- sideration, it most be pointed out that, owing to the peculiar nature of Jewish pauperism, and the fact that the Jewish pauper, even when "off the books" for a short time,is always on the brink of destitution, the figures given do not even yet fully represent the extent of the pauper class among the Metropolitan Jews. Au elaborate examination of the data furnished by the reports of the Board of Guardians would be out of place here ; and to avoid anything like partiality in the matter, we shall content ourselves with taking the figures regarded as authoritative by the organs of the Jewish community. The Jewish Chronicle, in a very able summary appearing in its issue of March 9th, 1883-before pauperism had attained its present proportions-estimated that out of a total of 25,000 English Jews, there were 7,000 poor ; and of 21,000 foreign Jews settled here, 18,000 poor. The total addition of foreign poor in twenty years was set down at 15,000. Making, then, all necessary allowances and deductions, the writer in the Jewish Chronicle holds that the " clients " of the Board of Guardians in Devonshire Square, the pauper class of the community, may be reckoned at 20,000 out of the 46,000 souls it comprises,-that is to say, the pauper class constitutes 43 per cent, of the whole body of Jews. The Jewish World, in a recent issue, puts the proportion at 46 per cent. We regard it as nearer 50 per cent. It is only needful to add that the United Synagogue admits that of the total Jewish funerals in London, 44 per cent, are pauper funerals, and that there are upwards of forty charitable institutions at work in the com- munity. The poverty of the majority of Jews shows itself, moreover, in some painful statistics as to the death of young children. Of the total deaths registered by the Metropolitan Synagogues, Si per cent, were those of children under ten. The proportion among the residents of the country at large is only 43'5. This fact will show how much truth there is in the allegation so frequently made, and so generally credited, that the death-rate of the Jews is lower than that of the people among whom they live.

The figures we have quoted are those accepted by the Jews themselves as authoritative, and are given without comment.

They do not need it, and only too faithfully reflect the appalling mass of pauperism that exists in the Anglo-Jewish community of London.