ospitality, and even
among the poorer classes a stranger is never allowed to depart without
some refreshment being offered him. Among the class better able to
extend hospitality, social reunions and card parties, with lunches of
fruits, cakes, cold meats and coffee, or wines, are among their regular
occurrences. Their great affection for the family and for their youth
and aged suggests these means of recreation, as then they are enjoyed by
all alike; but, as observed, the hygiene of all this is very doubtful;
it produces too much irregularity.

It is related that after the Roman conquest of Palestine many of the
Jews, becoming more or less accustomed to Roman manners and customs,
often joined in the games which the Romans held in imitation of the old
Olympic games of the Grecians. Not to be ridiculed, many resorted to the
practices described in a previous chapter, to efface all the marks of
their circumcision, that they might enter the games with as much freedom
as the Romans or other uncircumcised nations; so that the present
aversion to out-of-door sports evinced by the Jew is not necessarily a
racial trait; the persecutions and political inequality that until
lately he has been made to suffer have driven him into retirement and
seclusion. Although seeking neither converts nor political power and
influence, he has been hunted down, massacred, and chased about as a
dangerous beast. As the children of the great Rabbi Moses Mendelssohn
asked of their father: "Is it a disgrace to be a Jew? Why do people
throw stones at us and call us names?" It may well be asked, why? These
actions have forced them into the social and retired habits for which
they are noted; although it cannot be said that it is from a lack of
spirit, as one of the Rothschilds is well known to have been present at
the battle of Waterloo, where from a spot in the vicinity of the
British right-centre he observed the events of the battle; and when,
with the failure of Ney's last desperate charge with the formidable
battalions of the Old Guard, he saw the advance of the Prussians closing
in on the French right, he galloped to the sea-shore, and, crossing the
Channel in a frail boat, reached London twenty-four hours in advance of
the news of the battle,[65] but long enough for him to clear several
millions from off the panicky state of the money market. Marshal
Massena, one of Napoleon's bravest generals, the defender of Genoa and
the hero of Wagram, was of Je