Until the last decade of the nineteenth century the Turkish Government had a rule that no Jew might come into Palestine and stay there longer than three weeks. The restrictions were given up largely through the activities of Mr. Gilman, a former American consul to Jerusalem. When he came to the Holy City it was the policy of the representatives of the other foreign governments there to aid the Turkish authorities in expelling immigrant Jews. Shortly after his arrival he was advised by the Sultan’s officials that some American Jews were overstaying their time in the Holy Land and was requested to direct them to leave. He replied that such action was entirely contrary to the spirit of our government which is founded on religious toleration and freedom, and after some negotiations the American Jews were allowed to remain. Soon after this the British consul, acting under instructions from the British minister at Constantinople, took the same stand, and the other leading governments followed suit. Seventy-five years ago there were only thirty-two Jewish families in all Jerusalem and only three thousand in all Palestine. [Illustration: Christian sects may quarrel over their holy places, Jews may clamour for their national home in Palestine, while the Arabs proclaim that the land is theirs. Neither politics nor religion disturbs this maid of modern Jerusalem] [Illustration: Snow is almost unknown in these grass-grown vaulted streets, beneath which lie buried the ruins of the Jerusalems of the past. The streets Christ trod are twenty to eighty feet below the city of to-day] Now there are sixty-odd thousand in the Holy Land and, as I have said, Jews make up half the population of the Holy City. The Jews here are now engaging in trade, and already control a large part of the business of Jerusalem. Forty different languages are spoken among the Jews of Palestine, and there are many who cannot understand one another. In the main there are three separate classes: First is the Ashkenazim, made up of Jews from Russia, Poland, Austria, and Germany. These people are much like the lower-class Jews of America, and their common language is Yiddish. The second class is the Sephardim. They are Spanish Jews, descendants of those who came here centuries ago. These Jews speak a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew. The third class is the Eastern Jews, made up of Israelites from Syria, Persia, Arabia, and Central Asia. They speak Arabic and look much like Moslems. The American Jews are comparatively few, and it is seldom that you meet one born in the United States. Those who claim to be American citizens are chiefly natives who have gone to the United States to get naturalization papers, and then returned here to live. Many of them are frauds, and our consul believes that some of them bought their naturalization papers without ever leaving Palestine. American citizenship is an especially valuable badge of protection in this part of the world. Said our consul to me: