ow come to honor, and how
easily it passes their lips.

As the Jews, of course, could not vote on such a man, they urgently
asked the committee to propose another candidate not inimical to them.
This reasonable request was refused with coarseness and Kucharschewski's
candidacy maintained. Because of that the Jews were obliged to look
about for another candidate of Polish family who was fit for the
position and was not hostile to them. In spite of numerous applications,
they did not succeed in finding such a man; at the last moment, when all
attempts had failed, Jagello, the Social Democrat, declared himself
willing to accept the candidacy of the Jews.

The only thing in his favor was the fact that he was of pure Polish
blood. As their leading men all belong to the higher middle class, they
did not share his views. But the state of affairs forced them to support
him. Lord Beaconsfield used to maintain that the natural disposition of
the Jewish race was conservative, but foolish politics, instead of
encouraging the conservative instincts of the race, forced it to cast
its lot with the most extreme elements of the opposition. It has proved
true here.

Jagello was elected.

The leading men in Russian Poland, who, as a matter of fact, through the
whole new century, had fought against the Jews, although secretly, for
fear they should forfeit the sympathy of the intellectual aristocracy of
Europe, used this electoral victory of the Jews, which had been forced
upon them, to throw off the mask and openly act as their passionate
enemies. The so-called co-operative movement developed during the last
twelve years, and in itself nothing but a fight against the Jewish
commerce, under a different name, now changed into a systematic and
cruelly effected boycotting of the Jewish population. In private as in
public life, the openly pronounced password was: not to buy from Jews,
not to associate with Jews.

At the head of this movement marched the intelligence of Poland, among
others some of its most famous authors, avowed free thinkers as
Nemojewski, nay, as Alexander Swientochowski. Literary life presents
many changes, metamorphoses, which in thoroughness are not very much
inferior to those of Ovid. A good deal is necessary to make one who for
one-half century has witnessed the want of character among writers feel
even the slightest surprise. But I should willingly have sworn that I
should never have lived to see Alexander Swiento