an war in England, A var ma ire months and * email as ne song wash time he by Ar te maintain and paid several HERENCE come to. game over again to ve and behaved as such es, and satamed so to do, ched the maxztenance allowed him chestre prag that the said Order 25. The the petitions all the parties wa, die namang ane sodas, including a declaration by cat de was a Christian, ordered that the wedir maintenance be continued until rogy usan, and as to any demand of the of February the Bishop of London whether the said Marcus Moses be a mus be seen from the record of this case that the wegen by the Chancellors were not excessive, and e was only given in case the child claiming maan itself, and would not be continued sasa was genuine, the question, if there *** 1.6% adott 1, being referred to the bishop of my case the statute was not instrumental eres van versions; and though well known acted upon on occasion, there was a the part of the Chancellors to restrict in the year 1846 by the Act to relieve Her cts from certain penalties and disabilities. igious Opinions (9 & 10 Vict. c. 59). ition already referred to, which was prethere is no trace in the law reports of ected against Nonconformists, some of at of which, e. g. the Act of Uniformity I. c. 4) and the Conventicle Act (1670, ere only passed after the restoration of the being enforced against the Jews. In the Dissenters the severity of these statutes easure mitigated by the Toleration Act Mary, c. 18), which is expressed to be ch as some ease to scrupulous consciences religion may be an effectual means to ies' Protestant subjects in interest and ws, though in no way protected by this sturbed in the exercise of their religion; e hostile to them had therefore to resort ve frequently been used as instruments which were immediately suppressed by o the great credit of English justice. In per was published by one Osborne conof a murder committed the latter end of wish woman and her child by certain from Portugal and living near Broad child was begotten by a Christian, and e cruelty had often been committed by quence of this publication, several Jews n Portugal and living in Broad Street ultitudes in several parts of the city, and threatened with death in case they ny more. Accordingly in Easter term Bench was moved for a rule calling upon how cause why a criminal information issue against him for publishing the to. Upon the motion, Lord Raymond the faithful administration of the enactments ordained by Parliament, resisted the not infrequent attempts to make use of their machinery for the purpose of persecution; and there are even instances on record of the executive government having stepped in and prevented an abuse of the process of the Court when there were no other means of preventing injustice being done. Let us first turn to the account the law reports have to give us of attacks made upon the exercise of the Jewish religion. In the appendix to Haggard's Consistory Court Cases we find that in the year 1673 certain Jews trading in and about the City of London were indicted of a riot at the Guildhall for meeting together for the exercise of their religion in Duke's Place, and the bill was found against them by the Grand Jury. A petition was thereupon presented to the King in Council at Whitehall by Abraham Delivera, Jacob Franco Mendez, Abraham de Porto, and Domingo Francia, on behalf of themselves and others, praying to be permitted to exercise their religion freely or to be given a convenient time to withdraw their persons and estates into parts beyond the seas; and on Feb. 11 it was ordered by the King in Council "that Mr. Attorney General do stop all proceedings at law against the Petitioners, who have been indicted as aforesaid and do provide they may receive no further trouble in this behalf1." Yet in a few years' time they were destined to receive further trouble, for in 1685 one Thomas Beaumont caused several writs to be issued out of the King's Bench under the statute made in the twenty-third year of Queen Elizabeth against forty-eight of the Jewish nation, and thirty-seven of them were arrested "as they were following their occasions on the Royal Exchange to the great prejudice of their reputation both here and abroad." By the Statute of Elizabeth, an Act expressly directed against the Papists, and passed at a time when there were no recognized Jews in England, all persons above the age of sixteen years 1 I Hag., Con., Appendix, p. 2. "which shall not repair to some church, chapel, or usual place of common prayer" were to forfeit a penalty of £20 a month, and in addition be bound with two sureties until they should conform themselves and come to church. As an indictment for riot could no longer be laid, the upholders of intolerance availed themselves of this old statute, even in those days obsolete, which was not formally repealed till 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. 102). However, a petition was presented by Joseph Henriques, Abraham Delivera (one of the petitioners in 1673), and Aaron Pacheco, overseers of the Jewish synagogue, on behalf of the Jewish nation, praying His Majesty to permit and suffer them as heretofore to have the benefit of the free exercise of their religion during their good behaviour towards His Majesty's Government. It was accordingly on Nov. 13 ordered by the King in Council "that His Majesty's Attorney General do stop all the proceedings at law against the Petitioners: His Majesty's intention being that they should not be troubled upon this account, but quietly enjoy the free exercise of their religion, whilst they behave themselves dutifully and obediently to his government 1." From this time forth there is no record in the law reports of any attempt to interfere with the free exercise of the Jewish religion. This is not a little surprising in an intolerant age, when the many statutes directed against Papists and Protestant Nonconformists were equally applicable to Jews and might have been rigidly enforced against them. It must not, however, be supposed that there were no Anti-Semites in those days; indeed in the year 1702 they succeeded in passing through Parliament an Act— entitled An Act to oblige Jews to maintain and provide for their Protestant children-the avowed purpose of which was to assist the conversion of the Jews to the religion of the land. The Act (1 Anne, st. 1, c. 30) provides that "to the end that sufficient maintenance be provided and allowed for the children of Jewish parents who shall turn 1 I Hag., Con., Appendix, p. 3. Protestants be it enacted... that if any Jewish parent, in order to the compelling of his or her Protestant child to change his or her religion shall refuse to allow such child a fitting maintenance suitable to the degree and ability of such parent and to the age and education of such child, then... it shall be lawful for the Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper or Commissioners (for the great seal for the time being) to make such order therein for the maintenance of such Protestant child, as he or they shall think fit."" It may be mentioned that there were similar and even more stringent provisions in favour of the Protestant children of "Popish Parents" inserted in the Act to prevent the further growth of Popery (2 Anne, c. 1) passed in the following year. Although not repealed until quite recent times, the statute had become quite obsolete; yet in the early days of its existence vigorous attempts had been made to enforce it, and there had even been a disposition on the part of zealous Chancellors to give the words of the enactment the most extensive interpretation. An example of this tendency is the case of Vincent v. Fernandez, which was decided in 1718 by Lord Chancellor Parker, afterwards created Earl of Macclesfield. In that case a Jew had a daughter who turned Protestant. The Jew had a very considerable personal estate, and dying in May, 1717, after having by his will left several charities and given his personal estate from his daughter to his executor, the daughter, who was married and forty-four years old, petitioned the Lord Chancellor for a maintenance under this statute. It was objected that this case was not within the Act, for that, first, the child is above forty years old, and so the care of her education over; secondly, she is married and not now to be called a child, but to be provided for by her husband; thirdly, that the parent being dead could not be said to have refused to allow her fitting maintenance, &c., and so the power given by the Act is at an end. In answer to these objections, the |