The great world has been much interested this week in
the marriage of the Earl of Rosebery with Miss Hannah de Roths- child. Lord Rosebery is a man who, if he had a little more persistence and perhaps judgment, of had had the good-luck to be poor, might rise to high political distinction ; and Miss de Rothschild is popularly credited with three and a half millions, a sum which would make her the richest single woman in Europe. The marriage, which was attended by the Prince of Wales, while the Premier gave away the bride, is a really remarkable event in Jewish history, as marking the disappearance of a social barrier which has survived the abolition of legal disabilities. Three daughters of the most conspicuous, though not the first, of Jewish families have married Christians, but this is the first instance in which a lady of that faith has become a peeress. The Jewish organ recently lamented the event, but it is not an un- common one on the Continent, wealthy Jews, as they rise to the cosmopolitan class, ceasing to entertain the old tribal ideas which have so long been at once their strength and their weakness. They will, like other men, find that there is no solvent of prejudices like perfect toleration for them.
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