came to be comprehensive of application, and the ‘hymns’ to include much literature. There was always a vivid domestic side to the religion of the Jews, and the alchemy of home life went far to turn the dross of the Ghetto into gold. Their Sabbath, in the picturesque phrase of their prayer-book, was ‘a bride,’ and her welcome, week by week, was of a right bridal sort. White cloths were spread and lamps lit in her honour. The shabbiest dwellings put on something of a festive air, and for ‘_Shobbus_’ the poorest _haus-frau_ would manage to have ready at least one extra dish and several best and bright-coloured garments for her family. On the seventh day and on holy days the slouching pedlar and hawker fathers, with their packs cast off, were priests and teachers too, and every day the Ghetto children, for all their starved and stunted growth, had unlimited diet from the _Judengasse_ stores of family affection and free schooling. They were probably, however, at no time very numerous, these Ghetto babies, for up to a quite comparatively recent date (1832) Jewish love-affairs were strictly under State control, and only fifteen couples a year were allowed to marry. Ludwig Börne, or Löb Baruch as he is registered in the Frankfort synagogue (1786), was a result of one of these eagerly sought privileges, and it is easy to see how he came to write, ‘Because I was born a slave I understand liberty; my birthplace was no longer than the _Judengasse_, and beyond its locked gates a foreign country began for me. Now, no town, no district, no province can content me. I can rest only with all Germany for my fatherland.’ An eloquent expression enough of the repressed patriotism which was, perforce, inarticulate for centuries in the _Judengasse_ of Frankfort. Prison as the street must have seemed to its tenants, there was at least one occasion when its gates had the charms rather than the defects appertaining to bolts and bars. In 1498, a harassed, ragged little crowd from Nuremberg fled from their persecutors to find in our Frankfort _Judengasse_ a safe city of refuge, and for a century or more the Imperial coat-of-arms was gratefully emblazoned on the Ghetto gates as a sign to the outer world that the Frankfort Jews, though imprisoned, were protected. Yet we may fairly doubt if the feeling of security could have been much more than skin-deep, since in 1711, when nearly the whole of the street was burnt down, we find that some of the poor souls were so afraid of insult and plunder, that many refused to open their doors to would-be rescuers, and so, to prevent being pillaged, perished in the flames. An oddly pathetic prose version of the famous Ingoldsby martyr, who ‘could stand dying, but who couldn’t stand pinching.’