And yet, to be just, one should compare this cheerless Polish-Jewish proletariat with its immediate environment--the Polish peasants and the common people. Here one would still find a plus of virtues on the Jewish side. The wretched Polish peasant is not more cleanly than the Jew. On the contrary, he lives in the same room with his pig, and no ritual requirement compels him to wash his body at least once a week. The Jew, under his patched garment, is for the most part comparatively clean, only hopelessly stunted and emaciated. The Jew does not drink, while his "master," the Pole, has a kindly disposition towards all sorts of spirituous liquors. Also, the modesty of the Jewish women has yielded but lately to the pressure of endless misery or the temptations of the cities, while of the higher classes of Polish and Russian society but little of an exemplary character has been told. And finally: "Deutsche Redlichkeit suchst Du in allen Winkeln vergebens." Goethe's verse applies not only to the Italians, for whom it was intended; it applies also to Poland and Russia, where less faith is attached to statements than is customary with us, and it applies, above all, to the merchant classes of all nations who are wont to make their living by overreaching their neighbors. There is a wide gulf between the development of commercial ethics, as they are understood with us and in England, and the tricks and devices of petty trade no matter of what nation. But the Jew in Poland and in Russia has been and still is being driven, in great measure, into a class of wretched petty traders; and the law of the land forces back into the pale of settlement by drastic regulations him who would escape from its cage and from an occupation of dubious ethics. The Jewish section is the "partie Hortense" of the beautiful Polish capital; the Jewish misery is a shameful stain on Polish rule and its Nemesis. All the five continents must have their misery and toil, and they need a firm, all-embracing humanity to relieve them of this contagious wretchedness, this residue of centuries of depravity. But for Poland and Russia the humane solution of the Jewish question is simply a life-question. IV ST. PETERSBURG