THE NUMBERS OF LELE JEWS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE,—Is the apparently slow increase of the Jewish population of the world really so remarkable as your article in the Spectator of November 10th on "The Numbers and the Poverty of the Jews" would seem to imply ? Measured by the increase of the population of the more advanced countries of Europe (France excepted) in recent times, a growth from four millions fifteen hundred years ago to eight millions at the present day would indeed appear slow; but (without going into the accuracy of these figures, as to which no trustworthy statistics are obtainable, and as to which three and ten millions respectively would probably be nearer the truth) is not this apparent slowness explicable without assuming " a leakage the extent of which they
[the Jewel are unwilling to acknowledge" ? In the first place, in most countries, if not universally, the growth of population in the Middle Ages was nothing like what it has been in modern times. The causes ot this need not here be inquired into, as they affected alike the Jews and the general population. But besides the causes which affected all alike, there were many others tending to check their increase which affected them alone. A growing popula- tion requires space for expansion. Strictly confined, in the countries which tolerated them, to their crowded Ghettos, subject to frequent attacks from the fanatical populace, attacks often attended by wholesale slaughter, and for which any pretext was sufficient, the wonder seems rather that their numbers are to-day as large, not as small, as they are. Think of the massacres in Germany at the time of the Crusades, of the destruction of life at and preceding the expul- sions from Spain and from England. Add to the effects of these and other persecutions the constantly operating effect of oppression in its various forms, restricted resi- dence, exclusion from almost every occupation by which a living could he made, special taxation, and not rarely confisca- tion of their property, and your question is, I submit, adequately answered without resorting to the assumption above referred to. Even at the present day, in Russia, which country alone contains one-third of the Jews of the world, they are restricted to certain crowded districts, known as the " Pale of Settle- ment." That there has, however, at all times been a leakage must be admitted. But the question is,—Is it, or has it ever been, on such a scale as materially to affect the numbers ? So far as can be ascertained, such does not appear to have been the case. Nor does it seem that such leakage as goes on in England at the present day comes about in the way suggested in your article. Though religious ceremonial is undoubtedly much relaxed, and, as in the general community, agnosticism has made great strides, still the Jewish body does not cast off its agnostic members, and it is very doubtful whether the proportion of actual secessions is appreciably greater from the agnostic than from the so-called orthodox
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