The young man was not frozen to death. He made an immense fortune at the top of Mont Blanc by selling ‘Excelsior’ penny ices.” The secret of this “getting on” is known to every expert. The Jewish boy begins from his earliest days with changing a few sovereigns, and he pursues the path of lucre till the tomb opens to receive him. He is utterly single-minded in this point; he has but one idea, and therefore he must succeed. Who does not remember the retort of the Jewish capitalist to the Christian statesman who, impertinently enough, advised him to teach his children something beyond mere trade? “My first wish,” answered the Hebrew, “is to see my boys become good men of business; beyond that--nothing!” The average Englishman cannot help observing with Cobbett, and despite Lord Macaulay, that the callings which the lower orders of Jews especially prefer are those held mean or dishonourable by other men, such as demoralizing usury, receiving stolen goods, buying up old clothes, keeping gambling-houses and betting-cribs, dealing in a literature calculated to pervert the mind of youth; combining, as a person--afterwards sent to Newgate--lately did, the trade of a cosmetic artist with the calling of a procuress, and supplying the agapemonæ of the world,[16] while occasionally producing a sharp jockey or a hard-hitting prize-fighter. He is not ignorant of their prodigious trickery, of their immense and abnormal powers of lying--the “trifle tongue,” as they picturesquely call it--and their subtle art of winning their object by roundabout ways. He cannot mistake their physical cowardice, but he remembers that the Jewish officers, once so numerous in the French army, were as brave as their Christian brethren; and again he recognizes the fact that lying and cowardice long continue to be the effects of oppression. He smiles at their intense love of public amusements, and their excessive fondness for display, evinced by tawdry finery and mosaic gold.