CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Jews : their Past, Present, and Future. By J. Alexander.
(Partridge.)—The author, who bears a name well known among Christianized Jews, gives us here in a small compass an abundance of information about his nation. (He estimates their total number at upwards of seven millions, a population which Palestine would, we imagine, be wholly unable to support.) Some passages in the history of the nation, the period, for instance, that followed the fall of Jerusalem, which are to most people a blank, the great school that flourished at Tiberias, &c., are described in a very interesting way. Other particulars which are worth knowing are given of the more remote Jewish colonies, the settle- ments in Cochin China, Bokbara, &c., the Falashas of Abyssinia, the Beni-Israel among the Mahrattas, in whom our author is evidently dis- posed to see some of the descendants of the Ten Tribes. On this sub- ject we may quote an anecdote which Mr. Alexander had from Mr. J. Finn, late H.M.'s Consul at Jerusalem :—" About the year 1815, Sir Alexander Johnston, who had lately returned from being Chief Judge of Ceylon, told me that on his landing at Madras, a guard of honour was, of course, turned out to receive him ; on looking at the men, he re- marked that two of them were of a different appearance from the rest, and he asked them, 'Of what caste are you?" Israelite,' was the answer. What, then, are you Jews?" God forbid,' said they, we are not Jews, but Israelites.'"
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