church, nor from the nobles. I am ready to take my oath of this. In

that country you might fall from a third story window three several

times, and not mash either a soldier or a priest.--The scarcity of such

people is astonishing. In the cities you will see a dozen civilians for

every soldier, and as many for every priest or preacher. Jews, there,

are treated just like human beings, instead of dogs. They can work at

any business they please; they can sell brand new goods if they want to;

they can keep drug-stores; they can practice medicine among Christians;

they can even shake hands with Christians if they choose; they can

associate with them, just the same as one human being does with another

human being; they don't have to stay shut up in one corner of the towns;

they can live in any part of a town they like best; it is said they even

have the privilege of buying land and houses, and owning them themselves,

though I doubt that, myself; they never have had to run races naked

through the public streets, against jackasses, to please the people in

carnival time; there they never have been driven by the soldiers into a

church every Sunday for hundreds of years to hear themselves and their

religion especially and particularly cursed; at this very day, in that

curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote, hold office, yea, get up on a

rostrum in the public street and express his opinion of the government if

the government don't suit him! Ah, it is wonderful. The common people

there know a great deal; they even have the effrontery to complain if

they are not properly governed, and to take hold and help conduct the

government themselves; if they had laws like ours, which give one dollar

of every three a crop produces to the government for taxes, they would

have that law altered: instead of paying thirty-three dollars in taxes,

302

The Innocents Abroad