1960.

_February 27th._--After having been occupied all day with the duties
of his office, he went in the evening to a meeting of Conference of
all the Synagogues, to consider the subject of the constitution of the
new Board of Deputies. "There was a full meeting," he says, "and we
remained in debate till after eleven o'clock. The conference was
carried on in the most friendly manner; and, with some alterations,
the resolutions of the Great Synagogue were agreed to."

I give these entries referring to the Board of Deputies in the
interest of those of my readers of the Hebrew community in England who
may wish to trace the development and progress of that institution.

The 13th of March is a day which will be remembered with much
gratification by the promoters of civil and religious liberty. The
occurrence noted in the diary will always remind them of the lesson,
never to neglect an opportunity of serving a good cause when it
presents itself.

When returning, in company with the Lord Mayor and Sir George Carrol,
from the Court of Hustings to the place where the words "Jews' Walk"
were written up, Sir Moses mentioned to the Lord Mayor that many
persons had complained that, in these enlightened times, the walls of
the Guildhall should be disgraced by such a mark of intolerance as the
tablet bearing the above inscription. The Lord Mayor very kindly
ordered it to be taken down immediately. The same tablet was
subsequently given to Sir Moses by the Lord Mayor, and is now
preserved in Lady Montefiore's Theological College in Ramsgate as a
souvenir of bygone times.

March 16th records an instance of the danger to which, as Sheriff, he
was sometimes exposed in the discharge of his official duties, as also
his sympathy with others who equally endangered their lives in the
service of the Livery. Sir Moses attended on that day a Committee of
Criminal Justice, and accompanied them all over the gaol; later he and
his colleague had to be present at the inquest on a prisoner who had
died of fever. "I am sorry to say," he remarks, "that something like
typhoid fever is prevailing in the prison; the matrons and turnkeys
are greatly alarmed." On his return home he sent a dozen of port to
the keeper of Newgate and a dozen to the matron.

Wishing for a day's repose, he and Lady Montefiore repaired to their
favourite spot, Smithambottom. "The appearance of the Red Lion" (the
inn in which they usually took up their abode), he says, "we f