The great majority of the Jews in Cracow still make their homes in a quarter of the city called the "Kazimierz," which gets its name from that of a Polish king who fell in love with a beautiful Jewess some four hundred years ago and, for her sake, made Poland a refuge for the members of her race, who, at that time, were hunted almost like wild beasts in other parts of Europe. I visited the Kazimierz late one afternoon, when the narrow, dirty, and ill-smelling streets were swarming with their strange brood of slatternly, poverty-stricken, and unhealthy looking inhabitants. I have been through the Jewish quarter in New York, with its confusion of pushcarts, its swarms of black-eyed children, and its strange old men with gray-brown beards wandering careworn and absorbed through the crowded streets, each anxiously intent on some thought or purpose of his own. The Jewish quarter on the East Side in New York is, however, a pale reflection of the Ghetto in Cracow. For one thing, the Jew in New York, though he retains many of the habits and customs of the country from which he came, seems, in most cases, to be making an earnest effort to make an American of himself; to learn the language, adopt the dress and, as far as possible, the manners of the new country of which he is soon to become, if he is not already, a citizen. The masses of the Polish Jews, however, still cling tenaciously to the customs of their religion and of the Ghetto in which, for a thousand years or more, they have lived as exiles and, more or less, like prisoners. Instead of seeking to make themselves look like the rest of the people among whom they live, they seem to be making every effort to preserve and emphasize the characters in which they are different from the people about them. Although I met in Cracow Jews in all the various stages of transition--as far as their dress is concerned--from the traditional Ghetto Jew to the modern literary, professional or business man, nevertheless the majority of the Jews still cling to the long black coat which they were compelled to wear in the Middle Ages. Certain ones have discarded this symbol of exclusiveness, but still wear the long beard, and the side curls in front of their ears, which seem to be especially dear to them, perhaps, because, for some reason I could not understand, they are forbidden to wear them in Russia.