obliged to initiate the child in religious works.” Accordingly the religious life of the child began as soon as it was able to speak distinctly, or with the fourth year of its life. As to the character of this initiation we learn from the same Midrash and also from other Talmudical passages, that it consisted in teaching the child the verses, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God _is_ One” (Deut. vi. 4), and “Moses commanded us a Torah, the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob” (Deut. xxxiii. 4). It was also in this year that the boys began to accompany their parents to the synagogue, carrying their prayer‐books. At what age the girls first came out—not for their first party, but with the purpose of going to the synagogue—is difficult to decide with any degree of certainty. But if we were to trust a rather doubtful reading in Tractate _Sopherim_,(252) we might maintain that their first appearance in the synagogue was also at a very tender age. I hope that they behaved there more respectfully than their brothers, who played and cried instead of joining in the responses and singing with the congregation. In some communities they proved so great a nuisance that a certain Rabbi declared it would be better to leave them at home rather than to have the devotion of the whole congregation disturbed by these urchins. Another Rabbi recommended the praiseworthy custom of the Sephardim,(253) who confined all the boys in the synagogue to one place, and set a special overseer by their side, with a whip in his hands, to compel them to keep quiet and to worship with due devotion. A strange custom is known among the Arabian and Palestinian Jews under the name of _Chalaka_. It means the first hair‐cutting of the boy after his fourth birthday. As on this occasion loyalty to the Scripture is shown by not touching the “corners” (Lev. xix. 17), the whole action is considered a religious ceremony of great importance. In Palestine it usually takes place on the second day of the Feast of the Passover when the counting of the seven weeks begins. On this day friends and relatives assemble at the house of the parents. Thither the boy is brought, dressed in his best garments, and every one of the assembly is entrusted with the duty of cutting a few hairs, which is considered a great privilege. The ceremony is as usual followed by a dinner given to the guests. The Jews in Safed and Tiberias perform the ceremony with great pomp in the courtyard surrounding the (supposed) grave of R. Simeon ben Yochai, in one of the neighbouring villages. Another custom already mentioned in the Talmud, but which quite disappeared in later times, is that of weighing the child. It would be worth reviving if performed in the way in which the mother of Doeg ben Joseph did it. This tender‐hearted mother weighed her only son every day, and distributed among the poor, in gold, the amount of the increased weight of her child.