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receive any assistance ! — Mr . Shad well says Jews are still aliens , alien enemies , and can hold no lands- I must agawi 10-tally deny this . The practice has a Ivy ays ™ at any rate , been totally different . Did
any peison ever object to a title because the estate once belonged to a Jew ?—These objections are easily taken . If a title has passed through the hands of a crovvn debtor , a stand is soon made ; but did ever any one hear of the objection that a Jew had been the former owner ?
It is very well known that the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King ' s Bench is now residing * in a house he bought of a Jew—[ mean his estate at Roehampton , which he purchased of a Jew , Mr . Goldsmidt . Surety he would not have so done if he had thought a Jew was incapable of holding lands !
What is the meaning" of the 14 th Geo . IT . which makes Jews merely residing * seven years in the colonies natural subjects ?—The legislature must have been in a great mistake when it passed this act , if the law
is as they state it . Well , then , my Lord , what is at last the ground-work , the authority on which all this monstrous superstructure is to be built ? It is a dictum of my Lord Coke . I am sorry the gentlemen on the other side should have thought it
necessary to revive a stain upon the memory of so great a man , ( for a great man he undoubtedly was , though he committed many and great faults , ) by calling- the Court i s attention to such a disgraceful passage . They felt , I am sure , that they were
insulting his memory , and had too much respect for it to read the whole passage , as I shall think it my duty to do , ( however I inay regret the necessity , ) because , when such a proposition is made , it is exceedingly important to see the foundation on which
it rests . The whole passage is this , * All Infidels are by law perpetui inimiciy for between them , as with the devils , whose subjects they be , and the Christian th < ere is perpetual hostility , " &c . But ought it not to be added , that this passage has never scarcely been mentioned by any judge in any court , without the strongest reprobation ? In the cas ^ of Ormichund v . Barker , 1 Atkins , 23 , * ho main reliance was upon the passage , l > ut it was scouted by all the judges who sat on that occasion . Lord Chief Justice Willes
particularly remarks , this notion though advanced by so great a man is contrary to jeligion , comino ' u sense and common humanity 5 and I think the devils themselves to whom he has delivered them , could not lave suggested any thing-worse . ^ u Lord Coke is a very great lawyer , but our Saviour and St . Peter are in this respect much better authorities than a person pos-
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sessed with such narrow actions . " It was , as lie observed , a little , mean , narrow notion , to bay that no man is dignus fide but a Christian . In the saire opinion the f . ther judges ttoncuried , and . such has been the invariable course of tb ; courts . As Lord Chief Justice
lee observed in that case , One rule can never vary , the eternal rule of natural justice \* My Lord , I do not shrink from the dilemma in which the gentlemen have concluded I am placed , namely , that it would follow from my argument , that Mahometans would be entitled to the benefit of
this charity : unquestionably they would—I mean , I desire to be understood as going that length ; I can see no- reason why a Mahometan or the professor o £ any other religion should be excluded , and I leave it to the gentlemen to point out one if the ' v
can . The gentlemen have contended , that if they could shew any branch of the Charity £ 0 be inconsistent with the Jewish worship or doctrine , they have established this proposition , that its professors inust be entirely
excluded 3 i confess I cannot admit this * The Charity is for all the poor inhabitants of the town-, there are - various objects of it requiring * different qua'ideations , and if they csm shew that Jews are necessarily deprived of the benefit of one part , surely in fair reasoning this would decide nothing as to the rest . There : are various branches of the Charity requiring different classes of , and qualifications from , . the respective objects ; but how can . the fact of a person being in a situation that rendered one branch applicable to him , make him necessarily unfit for the rest ?
Let us k-ok to the great extent to > which the arg-uinents of the gentlemen would go . It Edward , that most religious . of kings , as Mr , Shad well observes , in founding a charity fo » preventing the evils to which human nature h subject , is to be considered as contemplating persons only of hisown reli-&ious opinions , why should this interpretation he given in one case more than another ? He founded Saint Thomas ' s Hospital—is 110 one but a Christian to he admitted there ?
On the same principle of exclusion , why should a Jew with a fractured skull or a shattered arm be allowed to come into that hospital ? The founder , it ought to . be said , could not mean it } the sufferer is a Jew , let him be turned out : such is the consequence of the profound arguments of
iuy learned friends , arguments which I confess I can hear only with astonishment and disgust . It is true , Jews were not tolerated at the time of the foundation of this Charity , but can the counsel mean to pursue their reasoning and extend it , as they ought to do *
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592 Intelligence .- —Right of the Jews to English Charities .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1818, page 592, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2480/page/56/
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