those who were tolerated by inheritance, the privilege of domicile descended to one child only. Subsequently, in consideration of the payment of seventy thousand thalers, the privilege was extended to a second child, though he could only enjoy it on producing evidence that he was in possession of a property of one thousand thalers. A foreign Jew could not settle in Prussia, unless he paid an exorbitant price for his admission. If the widow of a protected Jew married one who was not so protected, she was obliged to leave the country. Besides these burdens, and of course the ordinary taxes paid by all the king’s subjects, there were several imposts. There was a patent of protection whenever a child was born, a tax upon every marriage, and upon the election of every elder of a synagogue. The Jew was also excluded from all civil offices, from agriculture, from keeping an inn, a brewery, or a distillery, from setting up a manufactory of any kind, or from practising the profession of a physician or a surgeon. All Jewish servants who wished to marry were obliged to leave the country. Finally, the Jews were interdicted from acquiring house property, unless they had the express permission of the king. In no case could a Jew possess more than forty houses. In 1786, Frederick William II., the nephew of Frederick the Great, succeeded to his uncle’s throne. He was a wise and merciful sovereign, and he endeavoured to ameliorate the condition of the Jews, partly by mitigating the rigour of existing laws, partly by enacting new ones. Since his time, the state of things has gradually but surely improved. But the legislation of those times, as an intelligent writer has remarked, ‘bears the stamp of the fearfully degraded state of the Jewish population, and of the oppressive, exclusive, and repressive measures which were thought needful to the interests of that portion of the community.’[202]