The Constantinopolitan Jews, who wear a dingy-coloured white cap, surrounded by a cotton shawl of a small brown pattern, are raïahs, or vassals to the Porte, and are also distinguishable by their dark purple boots, and black slippers; while those who cover their heads with a _calpac_, somewhat similar to that of the Greeks, but surmounted by a scarlet rosette at the summit of the crown, are either under foreign protection; or subjects of another country trading temporarily in the Levant, and enjoying all the prerogatives of that portion of the community whose costume they adopt; these invariably wear yellow boots, and slippers similar to those of the Turks. The raïahs, as well as the strangers, are under the jurisdiction of the Grand Rabbin; the difference of their position acting only on their external relations, and not being recognised by their own rulers. The Levantine Jews formerly visited the infidelity of their women with death; but the present Sultan has forbidden to them the exercise of so severe a law, and the crime is now punished by exile. They marry their sons at fifteen, and their daughters at ten years of age; and if a father desires to chastise his child, he is obliged to obtain the concurrence of the seven Deputy Counsellors, charged with the religious administration of the nation; who refer the matter to the Grand Rabbin; whose order in its turn must, ere it can be made available, receive the sanction of the Porte. The same rule is observed with individuals charged with any crime, save that these are imprisoned during the deliberation. Having expressed to a friend my desire to visit one of the principal Jewish families, in order to see the costume of their women, of which I had heard a great deal; he accompanied my father and myself to the house of Naim Zornana, with whom he had held some commercial relations. Nothing could be more miserable than the approach to his dwelling; for, in order to reach it, we were compelled to traverse the entire length of the Jew’s Quarter at Galata; nor did the appearance of the house itself, as we crossed a miserable yard into which it opened, tend to give us a very favourable idea of the establishment. The window-shutters were swinging in the wind upon their rusty hinges; the wooden balustrade of a dilapidated terrace, whose latticed roof was overgrown by a magnificent vine, was mouldering to decay; the path to the house was choaked with rubbish; and the timber of which it was built was blackened both by time and fire.