Sir Moses Montefiore, the Jew philanthropist, entered on his hundredth
year on Wednesday, and received congratulations from his own community and from many eminent Christians all over the world. He entirely deserves them. A most successful man of business and a man of vast wealth, he has devoted his time and his money for half a century to reduce the sum of human suffering. He has, of course, attended to his own people first, but he has displayed no narrowness or tribal exclusives mess, while his business ability has enabled him to address him- self to remediable evils, instead of wasting his energies an dreams. Such a career deserves honour, but we should like to know why so meaningless a date was selected. For a man to be a hundred years old is so rare an event, that men can hardly help noticing it; but there is no poetry about ninety-nine. We observe that Sir Moses Montefiore's health is described as wow. dermal ; but men of that intense vitality usually keep their health to the last. Lady Smith was perfectly well when she died, and an old pauper who was recently asked to choose a, present on attaining a century chose to go up in a balloon, went up, and came down delighted.
Previous page
