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In recent issues of the Scientific American Supplement there have appeared several articles with regard to the distribution, numbers, anatomical characteristics, etc., of the Jewish race, a race, we may add, which we hold in high respect tor its vitality, energy, thrift, intellectual force, and, under favorable conditions, high moral worth. The last article, in the issue of January 1, contains an interesting comparison of the physical measurements of Russian Jews with corresponding measurements of other races inhabiting the dominion of the Czar. The measurements were made by Dr. G. Schultz, Conservator of tlie Anatomical Museum of St. Petersburg, and indicate that the racial characteristics of Oriental Jews are as strongly shown in their physique as in their social and religious customs. Unfortunately the writer, manifestly biased by the anti-Jewish craze which is showing itself so discreditably in certain parts of Europe, went on to assert that the bodily peculiarities of the Jews were accompanied by and served to account for certain alleged mental and moral traits the reverse of honorable. Tlie incorrectness and injustice of these assumptions are pointed out very forcibly in the current issue of the Supplement, in an article which is well worth reading. From an American point of view the opposition to the Jews, which has lately been revived in Germany, seems to be due partly to a survival of the unchristian spirit of medieval Christianity, but more immediately to the hatred which thrift always inspires in the unthrift3 The military ardor which has converted Germany into a great camp has drafted the flower of German youth into army barracks, and diverted the best energy of the people from productive pursuits. At the same time it has inipoverisbed the masses by direct heavy taxes to support the military establishment, and still heavier indirect taxes in cutting off the supply of productive labor. Though many Jewish youth in Germany have proved the native courage of the race on recent battlefields, the more peaceful instincts of the race have led them to seek in commerce and in the professions the distinction which the Christian youths of Germany have looked for in military and official positions. And now the cry is that the Jews monopolize the sources of wealth, and that they crowd the professions and other pursuits of peace and profit. The charge is doubtless largely true, but that fact is as much to the honor of the Jews as it is to the dishonor of those whose lower civilization has allowed them to be distanced in the competitions of peaceful industry, intelligence, persistence, and thrift. If the physically and numerically weaker race can distance their stronger and more numerous competitors in the arts of peace, the fact must be taken as evidence that mind counts for more than stature, and thrift and labor for more than military ardor, in the free conflicts of modern civilization.
