The Jews, as rather given to luxury in dress, would have been excellent patrons of the tailors, but for Christian jealousy. In Spain and Portugal, the rich Hebrews were the unqualified delight of the most orthodox of tailors—who loved to dress even more than they did to burn them. But the ultra-pietism of the Queen Regent at Valladolid, in the year 1412,—a year when the prospects of the unfortunate descendants of Israel were particularly gloomy,—put a clog upon trade, without, in any degree, accelerating religion. The counsellor of the Queen was Brother Vincent Ferrer, the inveterate enemy of the Jewish nation. The two together fulminated a decree, in the name of the infant monarch, Don John, which in substance declared that the Jews should live apart, and exercise no trade or calling that was either respectable or profitable. The tailors of Castile would not have been much troubled at this decree, for their old customers had saved money enough to make the fortunes of the entire trade, had it not been for one of the concluding clauses, which did more injury to Christians than to Jews. By these clauses Jews were forbidden to wear cloaks, and were restricted to long robes, of poor materials, over their clothes. The Jewesses were ordered to wear common mantles reaching to their feet, and with hoods to be worn over the head. Disobedience to these clauses was to be visited by “the forfeiture of all the clothes they may have on, to their under garments.” An additional clause fixed against them the canon of a sumptuary law; and no tailor dared to supply to a Jew a suit, the cloth of which cost upwards of thirty maravedis. If the tailor offended against this decree, the Church admonished him, but the law scourged the Jew. The first time a Hebrew donned a suit worth more than the thirty maravedis, he forfeited the suit, and was sent home in his shirt. For a second offence, he forfeited his entire wardrobe; but Justice kept him warm by administering to him a hundred lashes, vigorously applied by the hand of an executioner, who imagined that the more blood he drew the better Heaven would be pleased. For a third indulgence in forbidden finery the Jew was mulcted of all he possessed; “but,” says the gracious Queen Regent, “it is my pleasure that, if the Jews choose, they may make coats and cloaks of the clothes which they now possess.” How lucky for Baron Rothschild that he is not compelled, like his predecessors, to carry his cast-off clothes to his tailor, and have one new coat made out of two old garments!