[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Though no valid excuse can be offered for the wholesale persecution of the Jews in Germany at the present day, it is only fair to remember that they were excluded from England from the days of the Crusades to the time of Cromwell, a period of more than three hundred years. Indeed it was not till 1753 that they could obtain naturalisation, and it was a hundred years later (185S), when Alderman Salomons was admitted to Parliament, that they could at last be said to enjoy the full rights of British citizenship. Their good qualities have of course long been recognised, as they were in the seventeenth century by John Selden, the famous jurisconsult, whom Milton described as " the chief of learned men reputed in this land " : " Talk what you will," he says, " of the Jews, that they are cursed, they thrive where ere they come ; they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money, none of them beg, they keep together, and for their being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate one another as much."—I am, Sir, &e.,
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