Israelites, they were, to a certain extent, associated with
the notion of impurity; they might be turned to profitable
account by their labour or otherwise, but in respect to food
they were an abomination.

The same learned commentator (_loc. cit._ p. 88) proves that the
Talmudists forbade the rearing of pigs by Jews, unconditionally and
everywhere; and even included it under the same ban as the study of
Greek philosophy, "since both alike were considered to lead to the
desertion of the Jewish faith." It is very possible, indeed probable,
that the Pharisees of the fourth decade of our first century took as
strong a view of pig-keeping as did their spiritual descendants. But,
for all that, it does not follow that the practice was illegal. The
stricter Jews could not have despised and hated swineherds more than
they did publicans; but, so far as I know, there is no provision in
the Law against the practice of the calling of a tax-gatherer by a
Jew. The publican was in fact very much in the position of an Irish
process-server at the present day--more, rather than less, despised
and hated on account of the perfect legality of his occupation. Except
for certain sacrificial purposes, pigs were held in such abhorrence by
the ancient Egyptians, that swineherds were not permitted to enter a
temple, or to intermarry with other castes; and any one who had
touched a pig, even accidentally, was unclean. But these very
regulations prove that pig-keeping was not illegal; it merely involved
certain civil and religious disabilities. For the Jews, dogs were
typically "unclean animals"; but when that eminently pious Hebrew,
Tobit, "went forth" with the angel "the young man's dog" went "with
them" (Tobit v. 16) without apparent remonstrance from the celestial
guide. I really do not see how an appeal to the Law could have
justified any one in drowning Tobit's dog, on the ground that his
master was keeping and feeding an animal quite as "unclean" as any
pig. Certainly the excellent Raguel must have failed to see the harm
of dog-keeping, for we are told that, on the traveller's return
homewards, "the dog went after them" (xi. 4).

Until better light than I have been able to obtain is thrown upon the
subject, therefore, it is obvious that Mr. Gladstone's argumentative
house has been built upon an extremely slippery quick-sand; perhaps
even has no foundation at all.

Yet another "point" does not seem to have occurred to Mr. G